ASIA/INDIA - After the "Cockroach" victory, Indian Catholic laity call for a "White Paper on education reform"

New Delhi (Fides News Agency) – "The political victory achieved by the young activists of the Cockroach Janta Party has been remarkable. Equally significant was the support they received from the Christian community. Churches and Christian organizations issued prophetic statements condemning violence and corruption. They expressed pastoral solidarity with students, their families, and with leader Sonam Wangchuk, who had undertaken a hunger strike," Indian Catholic journalist and analyst John Dayal told Fides following the resignation of Federal Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Dayal closely followed the protests and visited the demonstration site organized in New Delhi.
After two months of street demonstrations in the capital, the youth-led "Cockroach" movement formally announced the suspension of its protest after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government accepted all of its key demands. Pralhad Joshi has replaced Pradhan as Education Minister. Protest camps in Delhi and across the country were dismantled following the official agreement with the government.
Among the movement's main achievements are a comprehensive reform of the education system; a formal commitment to overhaul the public examination system; compensation for the families of more than a dozen students who took their own lives in connection with the examination scandal; and a pledge not to prosecute those who participated in the demonstrations. The agreement also provides for the immediate removal of 47 officials from the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body responsible for administering university entrance examinations and at the centre of the controversy.
The crisis erupted last May following the "paper leak" scandal, involving the illegal disclosure of answers to the national medical entrance examination. The cancellation of the test nullified the efforts of more than two million students who had spent years preparing for the exam, triggering widespread public outrage over corruption and youth unemployment.
Dayal told Fides: "Several major Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical and Orthodox organizations publicly supported the students during the June-July 2026 protests against irregular examination results, leaked test papers and the police interventionin Delhi. Some Christians were also physically present in Jantar Mantar area, where they volunteered by organizing prayer services, distributing food and water, and providing medical assistance."
"I would also like to recall," Dayal continued, "that at the institutional level, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), which brings together the bishops of the country's three Catholic rites, strongly condemned what it described as the disproportionate use of force by police against peacefully protesting students. The bishops recognized the legitimacy of the students' demands and speaking of 'a heartbreaking assault on the very soul of our democracy.'"
Also noteworthy, Dayal added, was the intervention of the Conference of Religious of India, which represents Catholic religious congregations running numerous educational institutions whose students sit public examinations. The Conference declared that "their anguish is also ours; we stand in solidarity with them," calling for the protection of the constitutional right to peaceful protest and supporting the urgent need for a credible, corruption-free examination system.
According to Dayal, the current situation represents an important opportunity for the nation. In this context, the All India Catholic Union (AICU), Asia's largest association of Catholic laity, for which Dayal serves as spokesperson, has called for the publication of a White Paper on Education.
Elias Vaz, National President of the AICU, founded in 1919, noted that "question paper leaks affecting the NEET examination and other competitive entrance tests have become almost routine, leaving hundreds of thousands of honest students facing cancelled examinations, delayed results and careers held hostage by official incompetence and, at times, outright complicity."
"The National Education Policy 2020 promised transformation," Vaz continued, "but instead it has led to the decline of state schools through neglect, while abandoned school buildings are quietly being handed over to ideological organizations. India's young people have taken to the streets because they refuse to accept a system that keeps changing the rules governing their future." Vaz urged the central government to undertake a serious and comprehensive reform of the country's education system.
(PA) (Fides News Agency, 27/7/2026)

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