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Beyond the slogans and the swelling crowd, the volunteers who keep Jantar Mantar running | Delhi News

Beyond the slogans and the swelling crowd, the volunteers who keep Jantar Mantar running | Delhi News


Harsh never imagined he would spend his days walking up to strangers, offering them Kota Kachoris.

A 21-year old student of Delhi University’s School of Open Learning, Harsh is an introvert. He has had a fixed set of friends for a long time and usually does not talk to new people. Whenever he does, he has to think twice before starting a conversation.

But Cockroach Janta Party’s ‘Sansad Chalo’ march quietly transformed him.

It began on Monday, when he noticed a protester’s train ticket and asked where he had travelled from. Later in the day, while running from a police lathicharge during CJP’s ‘Sansad Chalo’ march, he found himself talking to another stranger.

On Wednesday, he returned to Jantar Mantar, walked up to a volunteer and simply asked, “How can I help?”

Within minutes, he was moving through the swelling crowd with a bag of Kota Kachoris brought by protesters from Rajasthan, offering them to anyone who looked hungry.

“Now, I go up to so many people to ask them if they want kachoris that I am not nervous anymore,” Harsh said.

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He is among the hundreds of volunteers at the protest site who form the silent backbone of the massive protest.

While some of the volunteers are officially part of CJP’s volunteer network, many others have simply stepped in wherever needed – fanning the protesters, forming human chains to regulate the crowd, helping with the injured, providing medical aid, picking up garbage and handing out food and water.

Another volunteer, a fifth-year MBBS student currently doing his internship, has taken five days of leave to run a makeshift medical aid point at the protest site.

“I am not an activist. I have a son. I have come here for the betterment of the our educational system,” he said, requesting anonymity.

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“We usually have a long day, which starts in the morning when supplies start coming in. But the crowd really start swelling by the evening. That is when it gets harder to organise. It’s a bit hectic at times but many doctors from Delhi are helping us,” he added.

Nearby, a 16-year-old student fans tired protesters seated on the road at Jantar Mantar.

“In school, I have always taken part in campaigns like ‘Save Water’ and ‘Save Trees’. This is about my future. How could I not be here?” she said.

Gurgaon homemaker Arpita Prakash (51) goes around the protest site with a black garbage bag in hand, picking up trash and asking protestors to throw food wrappers and empty bottles in it.

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“If everyone thinks someone else will do it, no one is going to it. Someone has to take responsibility and eventually do the work, right?” she asked.

Prakash said she had already been angered by the Chief Justice’s “cockroach” remark. “So, when this protest started, I felt like I had to come here and help these protestors in some way or another,” she added.

In May, CJI Surya Kant had said, “…There are youngsters like cockroaches, they don’t get any employment, they don’t have any place in profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, some of them become RTI activists, some of them become other activists, and they start attacking everyone…”

Chartered accountant Yogesh Ingale (33) is volunteering at the protest for his friend – CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke. He had known Dipke for the last 12 years, when they both studied in Pune.

When Dipke launched the movement, Ingale joined without hesitation.

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“From attending to guests, coordinating volunteers, arranging the sound system, organising placards to anything else, I help wherever I am needed,” he said.

For more than a month, his days have blurred into one another. “My day starts at 5 am and I sleep only around 3 am… Many nights, I don’t sleep at all,” he said.

Devansh Mittal is a Correspondent at The Indian Express, based in the New Delhi City bureau. He reports on urban policy, civic governance, and infrastructure in the National Capital Region, with a growing focus on housing, land policy, transport, and the disruption economy and its social implications.

Professional Background

Education: He studied Political Science at Ashoka University.

Core Beats: His reporting focuses on policy and governance in the National Capital Region, one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. He covers housing and land policy, municipal governance, urban transport, and the interface between infrastructure, regulation, and everyday life in the city.

Recent Notable Work

His recent reporting includes in-depth examinations of urban policy and its on-ground consequences:

An investigation into subvention-linked home loans that documented how homebuyers were drawn into under-construction projects through a “builder–bank” nexus, often leaving them financially exposed when delivery stalled.

A detailed report on why Delhi’s land-pooling policy has remained stalled since 2007, tracing how fragmented land ownership, policy design flaws, and mistrust among stakeholders have kept one of the capital’s flagship urban reforms in limbo.

A reported piece examining the collapse of an electric mobility startup and what it meant for women drivers dependent on the platform for livelihoods.

Reporting Approach

Devansh’s work combines on-ground reporting with analysis of government data, court records, and academic research. He regularly reports from neighbourhoods, government offices, and courtrooms to explain how decisions on housing, transport, and the disruption economy shape everyday life in the city.

Contact

X (Twitter): @devanshmittal_
Email: [email protected] … Read More

Nirbhay Thakur is a Senior Correspondent with The Indian Express who primarily covers district courts in Delhi and has reported on the trials of many high-profile cases since 2023.
Professional Background
Education: Nirbhay is an economics graduate from Delhi University.
Beats: His reporting spans the trial courts, and he occasionally interviews ambassadors and has a keen interest in doing data stories.
Specializations: He has a specific interest in data stories related to courts.
Core Strength: Nirbhay is known for tracking long-running legal sagas and providing meticulous updates on high-profile criminal trials.
Recent notable articles
In 2025, he has written long form articles and two investigations. Along with breaking many court stories, he has also done various exclusive stories.
1) A long form on Surender Koli, accused in the Nithari serial killings of 2006. He was acquitted after spending 2 decades in jail. was a branded man. Deemed the “cannibal” who allegedly lured children to his employer’s house in Noida, murdered them, and “ate their flesh” – his actions cited were cited as evidence of human depravity at its worst. However, the SC acquitted him finding various lapses in the investigation. The Indian Express spoke to his lawyers and traced the 2 decades journey. 
2) For decades, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been at the forefront of the Government’s national rankings, placed at No. 2 over the past two years alone. It has also been the crucible of campus activism, its protests often spilling into national debates, its student leaders going on to become the faces and voices of political parties of all hues and thoughts. The Indian Express looked at all court cases spanning over two decades and did an investigation.
3) Investigation on the 700 Delhi riots cases. The Indian Express found that in 17 of 93 acquittals (which amounted to 85% of the decided cases) in Delhi riots cases, courts red-flag ‘fabricated’ evidence and pulled up the police.
Signature Style
Nirbhay’s writing is characterized by its procedural depth. He excels at summarizing 400-page chargesheets and complex court orders into digestible news for the general public.
X (Twitter): @Nirbhaya99 … Read More

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