From Dhaka to Delhi: Framing Bangladesh’s July Movement in Indian Digital News Coverage of the Cockroach Janta Party
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65826/JSAI.1.3.2026.137Keywords:
Cockroach Janta Party, Bangladesh July Movement, Media Framing, Protest Diffusion, Foreign News, Content AnalysisAbstract
This study examines how English-language Indian digital media connected the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which emerged in May 2026, with Bangladesh’s July 2024 uprising. Drawing on a systematic search of 24 Indian digital outlets, we identified 150 eligible CJP-related articles published between 16 May and 28 August 2026. Of these, 39 (26.0%) explicitly linked CJP to Bangladesh’s uprising or Bangladeshi political actors. Such connections were far more common in commentary (33 of 69) than in news reports (6 of 81). The analysis shows that Bangladesh was primarily used to frame CJP within a wider regional pattern, draw political lessons, or establish boundaries around the comparison. Direct evidence of organizational links was absent, while Bangladeshi voices appeared only rarely. Notably, threat-based comparisons appeared exclusively in coverage hostile to CJP. These findings suggest that Indian digital media did not simply report a transnational connection but actively constructed, qualified, and sometimes rejected it. The study introduces mediated transnationalism of protest as a sensitising concept for understanding how digital media interpret cross-border protest movements.
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