Nagpur – Abhijit Deepke, the architect of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), has publicly chastised governments for the woeful state of tribal‑run schools and the chronic administrative indifference that has plagued them for decades.
Speaking to reporters in Nagpur, Deepke announced that the CJP will roll out a new “Fix Tribal Schools” campaign on 17 September, kicking off from Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district. The initiative aims to spotlight the denied educational rights of tribal pupils, the chronic shortage of basic facilities, and the systemic hurdles they encounter.
As part of the drive, CJP volunteers will travel to tribal‑dominant blocks, conducting on‑site inspections of school infrastructure, teacher availability, and student enrolment. This follows the party’s earlier “Fix Schools” effort, which targeted dilapidated government schools across the nation.
Deepke lamented that political parties lavishly fund their own headquarters while simultaneously claiming a lack of budget for tribal residential schools. He argued that such misplaced priorities betray the very communities they claim to serve.
He also challenged the narrative of nationwide economic progress, insisting that any real development must reach tribal populations. Citing grim data, Deepke said over 590 tribal students have died in Maharashtra in the past two years – many from preventable causes such as snakebites – and that more than 30 children have perished in Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh, within the last two months.
On the issue of compensation, Deepke accused several state governments of offering token assistance rather than meaningful financial relief and dignity to grieving families.
According to his figures, out of the 720 Eklavya Model Residential Schools sanctioned across India, a staggering 477 remain shuttered, leaving countless tribal children without a proper learning environment. He also raised concerns about the low representation of Scheduled Tribe (ST) students in higher‑education institutions, including premier engineering colleges such as the IITs.
Deepke urged a thorough investigation into why tribal students and teachers are under‑represented in elite academic spaces, linking the problem to deep‑seated structural inequities. He called on the central and state governments to adopt concrete, accountability‑driven measures to reverse the trend.
