Neha, a prominent face of the CJP protests, presses on with hunger strike
As the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) started its current protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on June 20, at the peak of Delhi’s punishing
As the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) started its current protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on June 20, at the peak of Delhi’s punishing summer, the focus was mostly on the founder of the party, Abhijeet Dipke, who had by then become an online sensation. As the sun went down, the Delhi Police started removing people from Jantar Mantar, and the protest was reduced to a small band of people gathered on and around the main stage. But one lesser-known face, standing right next to Mr. Dipke on his left with an “AISA” badge pinned to her kurta, continued chanting slogans louder than most of the others. She was Ms. Neha. Neha, who was back then not that familiar, at least to the rest of the nation, has since then become a prominent face of the protest. As the protest progressed, 29-year-old Ms. Neha, who is the national president of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), the students wing of the CPI(ML) Liberation, began an indefinite hunger strike with five other AISA members on June 28, the same day as activist Sonam Wangchuk. Over the next three weeks, three of her colleagues gave up the hunger strike due to health issues and Mr. Wangchuk was forcibly removed from the protest site on Saturday (July 18, 2026) morning, leaving Ms. Neha and two of her colleagues continuing the hunger strike for the 22nd day on Sunday (July 19).
The three, who now take others’ support to walk, stay in a makeshift tent close to the main stage of the protest. She is the only woman still continuing the hunger strike on its 22nd day. Though such a long hunger strike is a first for Ms. Neha, she is not new to protests. Army man’s daughter Hailing from Uttarakhand, Ms. Neha did her schooling in different parts of the country as her father was serving in the Army. Coming from a non-political background, she moved to Delhi to pursue her undergraduate degree from the University of Delhi. It was here that she became politically active through a theatre group. “Good thing about theatre is it tells you about politics in the languages that we speak, the songs that we sing, and our body language, everything,” she said. Neha continued to be part of the theatre group ‘Sangwari’, which has a lot of members from AISA, and became active in student politics too. She continued student politics during her Masters’ programme from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) and now during her PhD at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Her colleagues said that she was active in the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests in Delhi and also the farmers’ protest in 2020-21.
The BriefWire