By TRH Op-Ed Desk
The former Vajpayee-era education minister’s statement is being read as the clearest crack yet in the party’s united front over the Cockroach Janta Party agitation, says analyst Manish Anand
New Delhi, July 24, 2026 — A rare and pointed statement from BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi has opened a visible fault line inside the ruling party over its handling of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) student protests, according to political analyst Manish Anand.
Joshi, who served as education minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and once headed the BJP, posted on X that the force used against young protesters — including schoolgirls — was simply not acceptable. Anand described the remark as more than criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah’s handling of the protests, calling it a significant jolt from within the party’s own old guard.
“This time, no one is blaming Soros”
Anand in his monologue for the YouTube channel of The Raisina Hills noted a telling detail: unlike previous protest waves, the BJP’s ecosystem has not attempted to dismiss the CJP agitation as foreign-funded or tied to figures like George Soros or the “American deep state” — labels Anand said are routinely used to discredit criticism of the Modi government. Their absence this time, he argued, reflects how difficult the movement’s grievances are to wave away, especially now that a senior party figure has validated them.
Evidence of pellet and shock-gun use surfaces
According to Anand, fresh evidence has emerged that pellet guns were used against protesters during the crackdown, with at least one demonstrator reportedly at risk of losing eyesight. He said an Outlook magazine journalist was also hit and injured, with the publication documenting the incident in a report. Delhi Police has denied using pellets, but Anand said accounts point to the Rapid Action Force deployed on July 20 as the unit responsible for both pellet fire and stun-gun use during the confrontation.
“How exactly do the government’s ministers or BJP leaders justify using this kind of force against a peaceful protester?” Anand asked, adding that the backlash has been near-universal across social groups.
Anand argued Joshi’s intervention as especially significant given his stature — a physics PhD and former Allahabad University professor who Vajpayee appointed education minister, and one of three towering figures, alongside Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, credited with establishing the BJP as a mainstream political force. Joshi, now largely retired and running his own think tank from his Raisina Road residence, is still someone the Prime Minister visits on occasions of significance, Anand noted.
He argued Joshi’s statement may be giving voice to other quiet dissenters within the party, pointing to a broader pattern: senior leaders once associated with Advani — Yashwant Sinha, Shatrughan Sinha, and Kirti Azad among them — have since left the BJP for the Trinamool Congress, while Advani himself has gone largely silent. Anand said off-the-record conversations with party insiders reveal real discomfort over the treatment of protesters, particularly a widely circulated visual of a male police officer striking a young woman.
“In what democracy, in what civil society, can this be tolerated?” Anand said, arguing that free protest is a constitutional right and that using force this way functions only as intimidation aimed at deterring future dissent.
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A generation that “doesn’t scare easily”
Anand described the protesters as a generation shaped differently — one that stands its ground when baton-charged and holds the national flag aloft even after being knocked down, largely indifferent to political narratives or WhatsApp-forwarded messaging. He said their anger stems from a tangible reality: watching seniors from professional colleges remain unemployed despite earning degrees, with the job market failing to match their qualifications.
He said economists have long warned about this build-up of frustration among educated youth, but government messaging has instead centered on achievements like free grain distribution to hundreds of millions, missing the deeper economic anxiety driving unrest. “Anger like this has a threshold, and once it’s crossed, it erupts like a volcano — the CJP movement is exactly that kind of eruption,” Anand said.
Education ministers under scrutiny
Anand also drew a contrast between Joshi’s tenure and the current Education Ministry leadership, noting that Prime Minister Modi’s government has had two education ministers — Smriti Irani and Dharmendra Pradhan — whose specific qualifications for the post, he said, remain unclear to most. Pradhan, whose resignation the CJP movement is demanding, presided over a period marked by CBSE and NEET-related irregularities that Anand said have eroded youth confidence in India’s examination and education systems.
(Manish Anand is a political analyst. Views expressed are his own.)
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