The government appears quite bamboozled on how to handle the aftermath of last month’s student protests spearheaded by the overnight phenomenon, the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), against the malfunctioning examination system.
Although it was forced to surrender to the agitating students by conceding its key demand, the head of former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, this has palpably failed to defuse the growing momentum of India’s young cockroaches now demanding a drastic overhaul of the entire educational infrastructure, or lack thereof, from primary school upwards.
The School Theek Karo campaign, launched by the CJP on the eightieth anniversary of Independence, enlisting Gen Alpha as well as Gen Z, poses a far more daunting challenge to the current regime since it focuses on rural schools, a sector which is in such shambles that the government wouldn’t know where to start repairing.
Rural Education Crisis
Unfortunately for the ruling party and its cheerleaders, there is no place to hide from the wretched condition of education in rural areas, particularly in large BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh.
Statistics from a recent survey sponsored by the central government’s key policy vehicle Niti Ayog have revealed 94,000 government schools have closed, 26,000 in Uttar Pradesh alone over the past decade.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary panel earlier this month flagged a "drastic decline" in the number of schools and students as the education level rises, noting that nearly 73 per cent of students drop out before finishing higher secondary.
Other official statistics are equally damaging. According to a reply by the government in the Rajya Sabha in March this year, between 2022-23 and 2024-25 alone, government school enrolment dropped from 13.62 crore to 12.16 crore even as enrolment rose in paid-for private schools.
The Niti Ayog survey noted that while elementary schooling was largely free in government schools, secondary education often involved substantial out-of-pocket costs like books, uniforms, transport, and examination fees, alongside growing reliance on private tuition.
According to estimates, the per-child expenditure in government secondary schools was three to five times higher than at the primary stage.
Economic Pressures on Students
The survey also pointed out economic vulnerability drove adolescents, particularly those from rural and low-income backgrounds, into the workforce or domestic responsibilities.
It quoted the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2020-21 estimates that 31% of out-of-school adolescents (14-17 years) were working, while another 25% cited household duties. For girls, this often translated into early withdrawal from school to take on unpaid care work, deepening existing gender inequities.
“The result is a quiet but persistent pattern of dropout, shaped as much by affordability as by the economic choices families are forced to make”.
Clearly, with a direct link to deepening rural poverty, the woefully inadequate educational system in large parts of the countryside would have to be repaired not by glib talk or quick fixes but genuine grassroots development of village India and its many satellite towns.
The CJP’s choice of using schoolchildren to raise bread-and-butter issues ignored by successive governments, therefore, puts Prime Minister Modi, his ministers, and senior party officials in a huge dilemma. Agitating schoolboys and girls cannot be brushed aside as opposition activists or as anti-national terrorists to be stamped out by brute force.
Government Faces Political Dilemma
So far, the government does not seem to have learnt a lesson from its mishandling of the Jantar Mantar protests. The latest instance of its inability to understand the aspirational value of education across classes, castes, and communities was the needless derogatory reference by Modi to “Dimagi Naxals” that targeted educated dissidents.
This, instead of isolating “Dimagi Naxals” as he intended to do, has resulted exactly in the opposite. It has allowed the young cockroaches to accuse the Prime Minister of being against intellectuals and educated people who ask questions and demand accountability from the government instead of being blindly obedient.
If the School Theek Karo agitation escalates, it will open up a Pandora’s box of decades of neglect of basic infrastructure, particularly in backward agricultural states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh.
With smartphone reels recording every second of the Gen Alpha protests that have started with the woeful conditions of schools and the limited physical access to them because of broken and waterlogged drains, the students can now bypass a compliant mainstream media through Instagram, X, and Facebook, projecting a nationwide narrative which the government will find difficult to contest.
Since the BJP has been in power at the centre over the past dozen years and the dominant party in most states, it will find it very difficult to shove the blame onto past governments, although they too are responsible for the shameful neglect of the education sector.
Risks of Confrontation
The problem for the government is that it is likely to get into trouble adopting either a confrontational or conciliatory position towards the young cockroaches.
Images of the police beating up or arresting juvenile village students demanding better schools would make the July 20th horrors perpetrated on the Gen Z protesters look like a tea party.
It is unlikely that either the constabulary or the party goons can afford to enrage people of this country further by beating up school kids just for wanting better education.
On the other hand, a mollifying approach could encourage more and more village school students to dare to protest and win concessions from the local and district authorities.
There is little doubt that giving into the demands of the CJP for implementing a time-bound and regularly monitored restructuring of rural education from primary to higher secondary levels would require a Herculean effort and enormous political will.
Needless to say, this will mean a humongous reallocation of funds and the display of both administrative competence and integrity from the top right down to the local level, which appears inconceivable at this point.
A Test of Political Will
It remains to be seen whether a Prime Minister and a ruling party that constantly give themselves a pat on the back for ushering India into a golden age can actually eat their words and start delivering on their promises.
The writer is a senior journalist.
