Be it NEET or Ayodhya, BJP’s accountability problem is getting harder to hide. Media must keep asking

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on July 9, 2026

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2026/07/09/be-it-neet-or-ayodhya-bjps-accountability-problem-is-getting-harder-to-hide-media-must-keep-asking

Accountability and corruption. These two words are now haunting the Modi government. Not just because of the ongoing protests by the Cockroach Janta Party and its followers in New Delhi demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the leak of the NEET examination papers. The bigger story that speaks of corruption and demands accountability is the expose about the theft of donations at the much vaunted Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with the backing of its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) rode to power on the back of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement that promised a Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The movement kicked off with the Rath Yatra led by the L K Advani during which an inestimable amount was collected by way of donations by ordinary people who gave jewellery, bought and paid for silver and gold bricks and donated cash.

The culmination of this campaign, marked by communal riots in many parts of the country and the destruction of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, was the inauguration of the Ram Temple in January 2024 by the prime minister of an ostensibly secular country. Narendra Modi remarked that the building of the temple was an act of “civilisational justice”. 

A decade before this, when the BJP won the 2014 elections and Modi became the prime minister, he had promised: “Na khaoonga, na khane doonga” (Neither will I eat, nor will I let others eat). He was elected on the back of the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare from 2012 onwards.

That promise has come to bite the Modi government now as the story of the extent to which donations given for the Ram Temple were stolen has emerged. What we know so far is perhaps no more than the trailer. But it is striking that on this story, some mainstream newspapers like The Indian Express have led the way.

The report about the theft from the coffers of the Ram Temple is not unusual. In the past, there have been cases of similar thefts from temples across India. But this one at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya is significant because it is so central to the route that the BJP and the RSS have taken to come into power. 

The reports in mainstream print media tell us how the men designated to receive donations helped themselves to it and were caught only because there is some CCTV footage available. But this covers only 45 days, according to the BBC. It quotes a police officer saying: “The total amount that was allegedly stolen is yet to be established, but the accused appear to have taken money whenever they found an opportunity. There was no fixed amount stolen on a given day.” 

Clearly, the stealing did not begin when the surveillance system was installed. In fact, what we know as of today is literally the “tip of the iceberg” as veteran police officer Vibhuti Narain Rai told The Hindu.  

Also, although the UP government has formed an SIT to investigate the theft, and there have been arrests and demands for the resignation of those serving on the Ram Temple trust, the issue of accountability remains. Can the Modi government and the RSS shrug off this story, and claim that the matter has been handled if a few people lower down in the pecking order are arrested and charged?

Clearly not, as Indian Express columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta points out in his edit page article. He writes: “The strongest government in decades appears strangely powerless before the one problem it once claimed it was uniquely capable of addressing: Corruption. When the extraordinary power that the Prime Minister has encounters extraordinary silence and inaction on the issue of corruption, it tells a story. A very damning story.”

Rajdeep Sardesai, writing in India Today, makes a similar point when he writes: “The RSS cannot simultaneously claim moral ownership of the Ram Mandir movement during its hour of triumph and distance itself from institutional failures during its hour of crisis.”

He reminds us that the Ram Janmabhoomi project “became the defining ideological project of the Sangh Parivar”. And that “the BJP transformed it into unprecedented electoral success. The RSS provided the ideological framework.” Therefore today, in the face of the theft from the Ram Temple, “leadership cannot claim ownership of a historic success while disclaiming responsibility for an embarrassing failure.”

The real test for the media now is to pursue this story, regardless of the discomfort it causes those who lead this country. If there is one story that has blown the cover of the so-called “party with a difference”, it is this.  

To quote Mehta’s prescient observation: “The RSS is discovering that corruption is not just a matter of homilies about character; people with a background in the RSS can succumb to the temptations of unchecked power like anyone else. The allegations of temple theft in Ayodhya, an organisational structure architected entirely by the BJP-RSS, takes the fig leaf off Ram Rajya, literally. The BJP is now the ancien régime with all the signs of rot too overwhelming to hide.”

The Modi government has perfected the art of distraction, and simultaneously putting pressure on the media, so that stories like this die down. There are many examples of a glimmer of an investigation that begins into such cases of corruption, or favours granted to powerful business houses, that then fade away. 

 

Stories like this one, also broken by The Indian Express, about the family of the current Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mohan Yadav, who is a member of the BJP. According to land records accessed by the reporter, his family acquired 168 acres of land in Ujjain, a city that is undergoing urban renewal. They profited from changes in land-use that were announced by his government. The conflict of interest is too obvious to be underlined. Yet, despite this expose, so far there is no pressure by the BJP’s leadership on Yadav to step down.

The events in recent weeks, beginning with the NEET exam leak, and culminating in the expose about the theft of donations to the Ram Temple make it clear that corruption and demands for accountability from the Modi government will not fade away. 

Furthermore, if these media exposes, from Madhya Pradesh and Ayodhya are an indication, then perhaps there is reason to hope that at least some in mainstream print media have developed the spine to continue to dig out the dirt.

 

Mainstream media is losing a generation. Cockroach Janta Party is merely a symptom

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on June 11, 2026

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2026/06/11/mainstream-media-is-losing-a-generation-cockroach-janta-party-is-merely-a-symptom

A pest entered the news cycle recently. One that most people would like to either squash or obliterate with a deadly spray. So far, it has not been either squashed or obliterated. Only time will tell whether it can really weather all the storms that will come its way.

The online phenomenon, the Cockroach Janta Party, that began as a joke on social media has now manifested itself with feet on the ground. And it intends to continue to rally its online supporters and get them out and away from their computers, tablets and phones.

We can only speculate whether the CJP will transform itself into a political party. Or whether it will remain a group with a one-point agenda – demanding accountability from the Modi government about the recent leak of the NEET examination papers that has affected lakhs of young people across the country.

However, the very fact of the emergence of something like the CJP holds out lessons for the media, especially mainstream media. While newspapers have taken note of the CJP and most covered its rally in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi on June 6, mainstream TV channels have largely ignored it.

Social media has been rife with speculation about the government’s approach towards the CJP.  When demonstrations against the NEET leak by the Congress party’s student wing were put down with a heavy hand by the police in different parts of the country, how come the government allowed the CJP to hold its demonstration? And with that question comes speculation about the fledgeling group’s links with the BJP.

If you search print media, it is hard to find a plausible explanation about the Modi government’s soft response to the CJP. The Indian Express carried a front-page story quoting various leaders of the BJP. One of them is quoted as saying: “It’s part of democracy. Such things happen in democracies.” Ironic, given the same government has prevented peaceful demonstrations on a range of issues claiming they endangered “national security”.

But apart from what these BJP leaders said, what is significant is that none of them came on record with their views, a reflection on how tightly controlled the governing party is in terms of a media narrative.

Also, irrespective of the politics, or the lack of it, around the CJP, the very fact of its existence holds out important lessons for mainstream media.

It illustrates how a country, where most of the population is under 35 years, now gets its news and information from platforms other than mainstream media. And that even frustration and anger are expressed on these platforms. The fact that so far this has not been converted into votes that can affect the outcome of elections is not as relevant as what this indicates about the focus, or the lack of focus, in mainstream media that is turning millions of people away from it.

I suggest that it is the absence of news and reports in mainstream media about what is happening in most parts of the country that is the trigger for the growing disillusionment. Speak to anyone from the working class – a taxi or autorickshaw driver, a construction worker, a domestic help – and ask them what they turn to for news. Nine times out of 10 they will mention a YouTube channel that brings them local news from the region where they have their homes. Mainstream channels are rarely accessed and print media even less frequently.

The very fact that the CJP was able to garner such a huge support in such a short time on Instagram indicates the popularity of this particular social media platform with young people.

This does not mean that the days of so-called “legacy” media are over. But it does call for introspection on the direction that mainstream media has taken, especially in the last decade, and raises questions about whether it can change and find ways to become more relevant.

There are always exceptions. It is encouraging to read reports in some of the established print media that draw attention to the situation away from the national capital and politics.

This report by Purnima Sah in Indian Express on a perennially neglected part of Maharashtra, part of its tribal belt, is particularly striking. Nandurbar district, from where she reports, has been covered in the past. I can personally recollect from the 1980s that there were stories of the lack of water, and health care in the region, of children dying of malnutrition, of women bearing the burden of collecting water and firewood.

In India of 2026, little has changed. Women still do the back-breaking work of collecting water. There is poor connectivity in terms of roads. Basic health care remains inaccessible. And the women pay a terrible price with “chronic pelvic pain, uterine prolapse, recurrent vaginal infections, miscarriages, kidney stones and debilitating back pain conditions they believe are linked to years of carrying heavy loads of water from childhood.”

Such stories are few. Instead, what we read, or hear, are reports about how brilliantly the Indian economy is doing, how India is respected the world over, and how the government is reaching out to the poorest. Reading this, you could not imagine that areas of neglect like Maharashtra’s tribal belt remain where they were almost four decades back.

Or take another story that was on the front page in many newspapers because it was so shocking. Eight workers were killed and at least six injured when molten steel spilled on them at a public sector steel plant in Vishakhapatnam. Accidents do happen even in the best run factories.  But the horror of this one reminds us that these days there is little writing or investigation into workers’ safety and their rights. If you read carefully, almost every day there are small reports about accidents in factories, on construction sites, or manual scavenging despite a law that has banned it. But they are so easy to miss. And no one joins the dots to give us the bigger picture.

There are dozens more examples of these absences. To cover what is “real” India requires commitment and investment. It cannot be done sitting in an office, on the phone. These stories can only be told when there are feet on the ground. 

 

The absence of stories like the ones mentioned above inadvertently, or deliberately, furthers the government’s narrative that all is well. Repeating what is fed to the media has become such a norm now that one fails to be surprised.

The latest is the build-up to what we were told was Prime Minister Narendra Modi exceeding Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of being in office. No one questioned how these numbers were calculated. We were told that on completing 4,399 days in office “uninterruptedly”, Modi would surpass Nehru’s 4,398 days in office. 

 

This was repeated in every newspaper. World leaders sent in their congratulations. Ministers in the Modi government, including the education minister whose resignation is being demanded by the CJP, did pujas to mark the occasion. And we are told that at the cabinet meeting on that day, ministers resorted to synchronised clapping to felicitate the prime minister.

What practically no one, barring Aakar Patel in his column in Deccan Chronicle and this article in The Wire, pointed out that the calculation conveniently left out the years when Nehru was Prime Minister after Independence, that is 1947 to 1952 when the first general elections were held. And that in reality his total days in office “uninterruptedly” were over 6,000.  

This might sound like nit-picking. But it is an example of the ease with which these narratives are repeated now. Over time they become “fact” because we as journalists fail to do basic due diligence of questioning and checking.