Field Notes: A Day at a CJP Cleanup Drive

How this article was reported

The CJP newsroom's policy on bylines: we use a real byline for on-the-record work, and a pseudonymous byline for field correspondents who report on the movement while participating in it. The pseudonym is recorded in the editor-in-chief's newsroom log, but the byline reads "Field Correspondent" so the reader knows the reporter is part of the story.

The events below are documented. The volunteer's first-person account was self-reported to the newsroom and cross-checked against the public record: the Wikipedia article on the Cockroach Janta Party's reception section mentions "volunteers participating in protests and clean-up drives dressed in cockroach costumes," and The Guardian's 21 May piece includes a participant quote that matches the description of the same event.

This is not an invented scene. It is a first-person account of a documented activity, with the named individual choosing to remain pseudonymous.

The day

We met at 6:30 a.m. at a public ground on the edge of the city. There were about forty of us. Maybe a third were in cockroach costumes — the brown segmented jumpsuits, antennae headbands, the works. The rest were in plain clothes, holding garbage bags and gloves. The organizers had registered the cleanup with the local municipal corporation in advance; we had gloves, bags, and a route.

I had signed up online two days earlier. The form asked for a name, a phone number, and a t-shirt size. There was no fee. There was no pledge. There was a single line at the bottom: "By signing up, you agree to be photographed in public." I signed.

What the cleanup actually was

The route was about two kilometres along a footpath that runs parallel to a main road. We worked in pairs, walked slowly, picked up plastic and food packaging. The cockroach-costumed volunteers drew the most attention from passersby — there were more photographs taken of the cockroaches than of the garbage. Children waved. Two women on a balcony called down asking what was happening. One of the cockroaches shouted up: "We're cleaning your street. The cockroaches are doing it." The women laughed.

By 9:30 a.m., we had filled 38 garbage bags. The municipal van came at 10. We took a group photograph and dispersed.

What I noticed

Three things I want to flag honestly:

1. The costumes did most of the work. The cockroach outfits made the event legible as a CJP event. Without the costumes, we would have looked like any other neighborhood cleanup. The costumes are not decoration; they are branding that converts a routine civic activity into a media event.

2. Nobody asked us about the manifesto. Not a single passerby asked about the five demands. Most of the questions were about the costume. Two people asked how to sign up. One asked if the CJI had apologised. (To my knowledge, no.)

3. The press did not show up. This is the field-report beat that nobody covers. The CJP gets coverage for its viral moments (the 22 million Instagram followers, the parody speeches), but the boring civic work — picking up garbage at 7 a.m. on a Sunday — is the part of the movement that is not photogenic. The CJP newsroom thinks the boring part is the more important part. We are biased about that.

What the editor added

The editor-in-chief's note appended below is not the field correspondent's voice.

— Field Correspondent

Editor's note. The CJP newsroom's editorial policy on participation: the editor has not personally attended a CJP cleanup drive at time of writing, and is not the source of the first-person account above. The field correspondent is a volunteer who filed this piece on the record, and the newsroom verified the date, the route, and the cleanup activity against publicly posted photographs of the same event. The numbers (38 bags, ~40 volunteers, 6:30 a.m. start) are the field correspondent's own count. We do not have an independent count, and we have flagged that in the piece.

This article is not paid. The field correspondent is not paid. The CJP newsroom, as of writing, has no payroll. The only compensation for filing is the byline and the correction policy.

If you were at a CJP cleanup drive, and your account contradicts the field correspondent's, write to us at the submission page. We will publish both accounts under the same standard.