No state has been spared. Paper leaks have happened across India with a regularity that can no longer be called occasional or accidental. Young people study for years, sit examinations, and then wait — sometimes two years — for results that may never come, or come invalidated. In the meantime, their age passes.
If a doctor got their seat because someone leaked a paper, that is not just an education failure, it is a public health risk.
Their window for government jobs closes. And the system that failed them asks them to try again. The Cockroach Janata Party's first demand is simple: the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The Prime Minister has not responded.
Not a word. Secondary school students are asking questions that the head of government is declining to answer. As one journalist put it: if Dharmendra Pradhan does not resign and the condition of schools is not fixed, primary school children will be the next ones asking for accountability. "CBSE school principals stayed silent when their own students were wronged.
Not one said publicly that what happened to their children was wrong. What does that silence cost?" The silence of institutions that should have spoken is one of the most telling parts of this story. Not a single principal of a CBSE school made a public statement saying their students had been wronged.
Teachers' unions across the country — of which there are many — did not ask why doctors and engineers are being produced through paper theft, through connections, through recommendation. If a doctor got their seat because someone leaked a paper, that is not just an education failure. It is a public health risk. Now there is a new detail in the CBSE contracting story.
A company called Kovenant was given a CBSE contract. Before the contract was awarded, the same work was budgeted at ₹28 crore in the first tender. By the third tender — which Kovenant won — the budget had been revised to ₹38 crore. Kovenant submitted an outdated certificate to secure the contract.
CBSE has since shut down Kovenant's portal, citing security concerns. The sequence of events — inflated budget, outdated credentials, security failure — raises questions that have not been publicly answered. "Twelve years of this government's education record can be examined by anyone. College by college, the picture is the same.
What is being taught — and by whom — deserves its own investigation." Across India's universities, the rot has moved beyond exam leaks. Vice Chancellors are being appointed through political connections. Governors functioning as chancellors have reshaped university leadership in ways that serve power rather than scholarship.
Professors who could not practice journalism have become journalism professors. The curriculum has shifted. Physics gets less time. Forwarding political messages gets more.
This is not a metaphor. It is the reported experience of students in classrooms across the country. The Cockroach Janata Party today is focused on exam paper leaks. But the moment its issue shifts from exam to education — from a symptom to the system — that is when its real ideological test begins.
Education is not about beautiful campus buildings or replacing blackboards with LED screens. It is about what is being taught, who is teaching it, and whether the institution exists to produce thinking citizens or compliant ones. Whether this movement has the depth to engage with that question remains to be seen.
