Modi Breaks His Silence on the CJP Protests, After Sonam Wangchuk’s Hospitalization and a Widening NEET Scandal

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally responded, in public, to the protest movement that has occupied one of New Delhi's central thoroughfares for weeks. His answer came not in a press conference but in a tweet, arriving days after police used tear gas and batons on demonstrators, and after 73-year-old education activist Sonam Wangchuk was carried off a 26-day hunger strike in an ambulance.

What Modi Actually Said

"Nothing is more important than the welfare and future of our youth!" Modi wrote on X on Thursday. "We have decided to set up fast-track courts to ensure swift and stringent punishment for those involved in paper leaks... Those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared."

It was Modi's first direct public comment on the protests organized under the banner of the Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, a satirical online movement turned national platform demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Demonstrators have occupied Parliament Street for days, camping along the route that connects Parliament House to Connaught Place.

The NEET Scandal Underneath It All

The protests trace back to the NEET-UG medical entrance exam, taken by more than 2.2 million students on May 3. The exam was cancelled on May 12 after investigators found a pre-circulated "guess paper" that overlapped with the actual questions, reportedly traced through a whistleblower tip, a shadow server, and a multi-state cheating network uncovered by Rajasthan's Special Operations Group before the Central Bureau of Investigation took over. It was, by one count, at least the 90th major exam leak or irregularity reported in India over two decades.

The human cost is what turned a testing scandal into a national movement. CJP organizers say at least 12 students have died by suicide since the exam was cancelled, and are demanding 10 million rupees, roughly $120,000, in compensation for each of their families, along with the dropping of cases against protesters and Pradhan's resignation.

Sonam Wangchuk's Hunger Strike

The protests drew a new level of national attention when Sonam Wangchuk, the Ladakh-based education reformer and engineer whose real-life work partly inspired the film 3 Idiots, began an indefinite hunger strike at the Jantar Mantar protest site on June 28. He ended it 26 days later after police forcibly removed him from the site and hospitalized him over health concerns, following government assurances of talks on the paper leaks, compensation for NEET victims, and a promise that no cases would be filed against peaceful protesters.

Wangchuk is a familiar face in Indian protest movements, having led hunger strikes before over Ladakh's statehood and environmental protections, and his involvement gave the CJP's demands a degree of institutional credibility that a purely online, Gen Z-driven movement might otherwise have struggled to command.

Why Protesters Say the Announcement Isn't Enough

CJP's reaction to Modi's tweet was blunt. "The announcement of fast-track courts is not a real solution. It is merely a distraction," CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka said at Jantar Mantar. "Paper leaks are not happening because India lacked fast-track courts. They are happening because Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has been completely incompetent."

CJP founding president Abhijeet Dipke went further on X, saying Modi appeared "ready to shut down all of Delhi, but not sack Dharmendra Pradhan." Dipke has also accused unnamed outside groups of instigating violence at protest sites specifically to discredit the movement, telling the news agency ANI that "we have been sitting here for a month. No such incident has happened... Goons are being sent from outside... to deliberately incite people."

Where Things Stand

The government's response has not been limited to words. Officials shut down 16 metro stations in and around the main protest site this week, and Monday's march toward Parliament was met with tear gas and baton charges, images that appear to have hardened rather than dampened protester resolve. Smaller solidarity demonstrations have since spread to Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Patna.

For a government facing its most sustained youth-led challenge in years, fast-track courts are a concrete, if narrow, concession. For a movement that began as a joke about a judge's insult and grew into a referendum on unemployment, exam integrity, and government accountability, it's a start that most protesters, for now, don't consider an ending.