Women at the Heart of the Jantar Mantar Agitation: How Female Protesters Shaped India’s Largest Youth Movement of 2026
Jantar Mantar has long been the preferred stage for dissent in the national capital. In the summer of 2026 it became the centre of one of the most sustained youth mobilisations in recent memory. What began as a modest gathering of examination aspirants under the banner of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) grew into a 36-day occupation that at its peak drew tens of thousands of students, parents and supporters. The core demands were clear: accountability for repeated paper leaks, systemic reform of the examination process, and the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. While the movement was widely described as a Gen-Z uprising, the role of women within it deserves closer attention. Their presence, labour and leadership moved from the margins of an initially male-dominated space to the very centre of the protest’s daily survival and moral authority.
In the early days of June the gender imbalance was hard to miss. Crowds of young men filled the space, scaling walls for better views, leading chants and dominating the visible leadership. Women were present, but their numbers were noticeably smaller and their roles more peripheral. Photographers and participants noted that the atmosphere felt difficult for women and queer people to navigate comfortably. One photographer described the experience of being shoved and struggling to breathe in dense male crowds. Two young women from Uttar Pradesh, Manika and Nidhi, stood out precisely because they were exceptions in a sea of male faces. The irony was not lost on observers: a movement whose manifesto called for 50 percent reservation for women in Parliament still struggled to create equal space for them on the ground.
That picture began to change as the protest lengthened and intensified. By mid-July women were arriving in larger numbers from across the country. Schoolgirls who had skipped classes, college students preparing for NEET and other competitive exams, working professionals who took leave, mothers with toddlers, and activists travelled to Delhi and stayed. Some came with family; others arrived alone or in groups of friends. Anoosheh, a Class 12 student who had moved from Uttar Pradesh two years earlier for coaching, spent 15 to 16 hours a day at the site. Kaneez from Ladakh remained even after fracturing her ankle during the police action of 20 July. A six-month pregnant law student, Anjali Vajpayee, attended with her husband. Their reasons were both personal and collective. A broken examination system threatened years of preparation and the possibility of a different future. Many spoke of the need to hold the system accountable, regardless of political affiliation.
Women did not merely attend. They sustained the movement’s everyday functioning. Small groups coordinated volunteers, managed logistics, distributed food and medicine, and cleaned the site. GatherSisters, a collective of women, delivered paneer rolls, fruit and chaach through rain and chaos, continuing even after the main demands were met so that remaining protesters would not go hungry. Individual women brought sanitary napkins and hygiene kits after recognising the practical difficulties faced by those camping out. Swati Sharma, a working professional from west Delhi, began supplying pads after seeing the condition of the few available toilets. Young women formed human chains during moments of tension, poured water into the eyes of those affected by tear gas, and carried injured protesters to safety. These acts of care were rarely photographed for the front pages, yet they kept the occupation viable for weeks.
Leadership roles also expanded. Neha Bora, national president of the All India Students’ Association and a PhD scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, emerged as one of the most visible faces of the agitation. She undertook a 23-day hunger strike alongside Sonam Wangchuk and two other student leaders, Manish Kumar and Aameen Amitoj. Her presence, and the subsequent public gesture of actor Shabana Azmi kissing her hand, signalled that women were not peripheral supporters but central actors. Other women took on the role of spokespersons, policy drafting and media interaction. Aafreen, an MBA graduate from Bengaluru, left a stable job to serve as a CJP spokesperson. These contributions complicated the early narrative of a purely male-led youth revolt.
The physical conditions of the site, however, extracted a heavier toll on women. Limited space forced many to sleep on footpaths outside the main protest area. Water supply was cut off early, and the few public toilets nearby were poorly maintained. Women reported drinking less water in the extreme heat simply to avoid using the facilities. Those who were menstruating faced particular hardship. Sisters Shazia and Sanya Ansari from Uttar Pradesh went an entire day without using a washroom after arriving early in the morning. Volunteer doctors noted that the lack of sanitation was becoming a public-health issue affecting medical camps as well. Fears of harassment added another layer of stress. Some women described moments when personal space was violated by drunkards or by men in the dense crowds. During the police action of 20 July, videos circulated showing women being pushed, hit with batons and, according to protester accounts, subjected to inappropriate handling. Delhi Police stated that specialised units were deployed and denied claims of widespread brutality, yet the images and testimonies fuelled further outrage and legal petitions.
Despite these obstacles, many women refused to leave. Their persistence reflected both individual determination and a collective sense that the education system’s failures were not abstract. For students who had invested years and family resources into coaching centres, paper leaks and repeated cancellations represented more than administrative failure. They threatened the basic promise of mobility through merit. Women at the site repeatedly linked the demand for examination integrity to larger questions of fairness and opportunity. When the government eventually conceded key demands, including the minister’s resignation, women were among those who celebrated spontaneously at Jantar Mantar while continuing the practical work of feeding and supporting the remaining crowds for one more night.
The 2026 Jantar Mantar occupation fits into a longer pattern in which women have repeatedly moved into the centre of Indian protest movements. From the farmers’ sit-ins of earlier years, where women organised parallel “mahila parliaments,” to demands for the implementation of the women’s reservation law, female participation has often combined public visibility with the less glamorous labour of sustaining long occupations. What distinguished the CJP agitation was the generational dimension. Many of the women present were still school or college students. They were simultaneously experiencing the failures of the examination system and learning, under difficult conditions, how collective action is organised and maintained.
The early male dominance of the space was never fully erased, and the practical barriers of hygiene, safety and physical comfort remained real. Yet by the final weeks the presence of women had become impossible to ignore. They cleaned the site, fed the crowds, protected the injured, led hunger strikes and refused to abandon the protest even after personal injury. Their participation transformed what might have remained a largely male expression of youth frustration into a more complex and resilient movement. In doing so, they demonstrated that the demand for accountability in education was not the exclusive concern of any one gender, but a shared stake in the country’s future. The tents at Jantar Mantar have since been dismantled, but the record of those weeks shows that women did not simply join the protest. They helped keep it alive.
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