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.

Why did Vypari Bai die?

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, January 23, 2011

THE OTHER HALF 

Women in rural India continue to die because of indifference and neglect by healthcare authorities...

Widespread anger: Adivasis protest Vypari Bai's

This is a public health warning. Do not express concern for the state of healthcare in this country. Do not express anger that women die because they are either denied care or help is delayed when they have complicated pregnancies. Do not demand that healthcare is an entitlement that the poor have a right to demand and that the government must deliver.

Chances are if you are too vocal about an issue like this, and if you happen to be working in an adivasis-dominated district anywhere in India, the district administration will hint that you have Maoist tendencies. And that alone is enough to land you in jail and even, as in the case of Dr. Binayak Sen who has spent a lifetime working as a doctor for the poorest, get you a life sentence for sedition under an antiquated law.

This is no exaggeration. On December 28, 2010, more than 500 adivasis demonstrated peacefully in front of the district hospital in Barwani, Madhya Pradesh. They were not demanding wages or forest rights. They were protesting the death of a 22-year-old pregnant adivasi woman, Vypari Bai, caused by callousness and negligence of the medical authorities.

Vypari Bai's story is not unusual. It is enacted hundreds of times in the poorer parts of this country. On November 27, Vypari Bai, who was eight months pregnant, developed high blood pressure and eclampsia, a life-threatening condition of pregnancy. She needed urgent medical help. From her village of Ban, her relatives carried her in a cloth sling for 10 km to the nearest Primary Health Centre at Bokarta. There she was told that the place was not equipped to deal with her condition. So she was sent to the Community Health Centre at Pati by ambulance. There again there was no help and the family was told to take her to the district hospital in Barwani.

Made to run around

The story did not end there. In Barwani, at the time of admission her blood pressure was high. The normal procedure in such situations is to try and normalise the blood pressure and induce labour. Although she was given some medication for the BP, nothing was done to induce labour. Instead, her relatives were asked to take her to a private hospital for an ultrasound in an auto rickshaw even though the facility existed in the hospital. The ultrasound confirmed that the foetus was still alive.

Yet, despite her relatives pleading for help, no doctor was ready to attend to Vypari Bai. Instead, they were advised to take her to Indore, 150 km away. For refusing to do so, they were asked to sign a statement that they took full responsibility for the consequences. By this stage, it would have required a miracle for this young woman to survive. She did not. On November 29, in the early hours of the morning, she died.

Her death has enraged the adivasis in Barwani district who have seen too much of this kind of callous neglect. A survey of maternal deaths in the district hospital from April to November 2010 revealed that there were 25 maternal deaths during this period, nine just in November.

A year earlier, in 2008, in a similar incident, a pregnant woman was turned away from the Primary Health Centre in Menimata in Barwani district when she had already begun labour because she would not pay. She was entitled to free treatment. As a result, she delivered her child literally on the road, outside the hospital. Those who expressed their disgust at this were charged by the district administration under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

On December 28, the district administration once again slapped charges against some of those who demonstrated peacefully in front of the hospital and arrested Bachhiya Bhai on charges framed against him in 2008. He was finally released on bail after eight days. But the charges against him, under Section 146 IPC (unlawful assembly, rioting, armed with deadly weapon which when used is likely to cause death) and Section 186 IPC (obstructing public servant from discharge of public function) remain. Over 200 of those who participated in the December 28 demonstration have also been charged.

We know about Barwani because there is a group there, the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan that is organising and working in the area. But there must be hundreds of similar stories from around the country.

The response of the district administration is shocking enough. What is worse is that this is happening five years after the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched to check precisely these kinds of incidents, where poor women are made to go from pillar to post for help when they develop complications during pregnancy. Institutional deliveries were seen as a way to bring down the unacceptably high maternal mortality rate. Yet, according to the National Family Health Survey – 3, only 13 per cent of births to the poorest women and 18 per cent of births to women with no education or who belong to the scheduled tribes are delivered in institutions. So no one will argue that increasing access to medical help when women need it most is an urgent need.

Only on paper

This need was supposed to have been addressed by the NRHM. Its guidelines state that every Community Health Centre — that comes between the Primary Health Centre and the District Hospital — is supposed to provide “24-hour delivery services including normal and assisted deliveries” and “Essential and Emergency Obstetric Care including surgical interventions like Caesarean Sections and other medical interventions”. Furthermore, specific districts have been selected in every state where the district hospital is designated as a Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care Centre (CEMONC). The Barwani district hospital is designated as such. Yet, despite a staff that includes four gynaecologists and two anaesthetists, no one was available to help Vypari Bai.

The real story of India's progress lies in the detail of how programmes like NRHM are implemented, or not implemented. It is a story that is not told often enough to make us angry. Occasionally, we pay attention to the needs of our children. But women like Vypari Bai, who die because no one cares, remain invisible, the ghosts of another India.

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