Supporters of India’s surging youth movement have flooded Tufts’ Instagram account in recent weeks with comments targeting the daughter of the country’s education minister, a graduate of The Fletcher School.
India’s Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP — originally a satirical protest against a top jurist’s comments calling unemployed youth in India “cockroaches” — has burgeoned into an anti-establishment movement fighting issues facing India’s youth. Tensions between the CJP and India’s government have risen in recent weeks with protests in New Delhi turning into violent clashes with police.
One of the party’s major demands is the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s minister of education. Pradhan has faced controversy over multiple leaks of information from the country’s largest undergraduate medical exam, leading to its cancellation in early May. He has also faced criticism over the rocky implementation of a digital grading system and for calling members of the CJP “a B-team of terrorists.”
Naimisha Pradhan, Pradhan’s adult daughter, received her Master of Laws from The Fletcher School in February 2024 with a focus on international law, according to commencement programming from that year.
Numerous posts on Tufts’ Instagram have drawn thousands of comments in recent weeks — some exceeding 11,000 — compared with the several hundred that are typical for the university's posts.
Many of the comments argued that a contradiction exists between India’s fragile education system and the daughter of its leader attending a prestigious university in the United States.
Several comments mentioned the reported deaths of at least a dozen students due to suicide following the cancellation of the May medical exam and faulted Dharmendra Pradhan. A report from the country’s National Crime Records Bureau notes that students make up 7.6% of suicides in India.
The top comment with nearly 28,000 likes on a “Go Jumbos!” post argued that Naimisha Pradhan’s tuition was being paid for with the blood of India’s citizens. Another asserted that her education was being funded at the expense of people’s fundamental rights.
“They destroy the education system in our country while sending their own children to expensive universities abroad,” one comment with more than 4,000 likes read.
Many comments tagged a now-deactivated account bearing Naimisha Pradhan’s name, calling on her to tell her father to resign.
Other comments aimed to spread awareness about the need for reform in India’s education system without directly criticizing the Pradhans.
“I am writing to make your university aware of the concerns being raised by students across India regarding our education system,” the top comment on an engineering-related post by the university read. The comment had more than 20,000 likes as of Wednesday.
“Many young people are asking for a fair, transparent, and accountable education system,” another comment with several thousand likes read. “We hope for meaningful reforms, open dialogue, and respect for the rights of students.”
There is no indication that the younger Pradhan remains affiliated with the university. The online backlash has led her to disable her social media accounts, according to reports from several outlets.
Patrick Collins, a Tufts spokesperson, said the university was aware of the comments but declined to speak further on the matter. He added that the university retains the right to remove comments in some cases, though it does so “with significant restraint and [has] not done so in this instance to date.”
One comment from a verified account called on Tufts to take action due to a lack of accountability in India, though it was unclear what their demands were.
The CJP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
