CJP Funding Mystery: What Is the Link Between Thakur Family Foundation and Saurav Das? Founder Dinesh Thakur Responds to ‘Anti-National’ Allegations

WHO IS FUNDING the Cockroach Janta Party? This question has been asked repeatedly on social media, with many theories emerging about who could be behind the funding. As the CJP protest ended on July 25, 2026, questions arose, particularly from several right-wing commentators, about who funded the protest, given its scale. Some questioned how a protest led largely by students could be organized on such a large scale without financial backing. 

The claims were rejected by several CJP spokespersons, who said there were no external funders and that ordinary people helped make the protest successful. Amid these claims and counterclaims, one name has emerged: Dinesh S. Thakur, the former Ranbaxy executive turned whistleblower. Thakur founded the Thakur Family Foundation, which, according to publicly available records, has provided funding to media outlets, independent journalists, and researchers, including Saurav Das, a CJP spokesperson.

Who Is Dinesh Thakur? 

Dinesh Thakur is a former pharmaceutical executive and a famous whistleblower. He has experience in pharmaceuticals, drug regulation, biomedical products and information technology and works for improving the quality and safety of affordable medicines globally. He has worked on health policy in both the USA and India. Thakur has received awards for his work as a whistleblower and has worked in many senior positions at companies including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ranbaxy Laboratories, and Infosys Technologies.

Thakur is best known for his whistleblowing work at Ranbaxy Laboratories, where he worked between 2003 and 2005. He exposed problems at Ranbaxy Laboratories, one of India’s major generic drug manufacturers. During the time Thakur worked there, he was serving as Director and Global Head of Research Information and Portfolio Management. While working there, he discovered what he believed were serious problems within the organization involving drug data, manufacturing practices, and laboratory procedures.

See Also: ‘It Was a Well-Funded, Organised Move, Not at All Organic’: Cybersecurity Expert Amit Dubey on CJP Protest and Social Media Influence

In 2005, he resigned from the company and reported all the concerns that he had to the management. He then worked with US authorities for several years to investigate the allegations that he had made. In 2013, Ranbaxy agreed to pay $500 million to resolve criminal and civil allegations against the company. The company pleaded guilty to multiple criminal offences related to the case.

After the case was over and the US government received the $500 million, Thakur received $48.6 million from the US government as a whistleblower award. After the Ranbaxy case, Thakur emerged as an important voice on pharmaceutical regulations and became involved with public health advocacy, drug regulation and civil-society work. He later started working beyond that to support broader discussions about healthcare and drug regulations.

Thakur Family Foundation and Its Funding in India

This is where he started the Thakur Family Foundation. The Thakur Family Foundation describes itself as an independent organisation focused on public health and civil liberties in India. As per publicly available records, the organization has funded journalists, researchers, media organizations, and civil-society groups working on issues related to public health, pharmaceuticals, and civil liberties. Among these were many Indian organizations and individuals.

Dinesh Thakur has been accused on social media of using the money he received from the US government to fund organizations such as The Wire and Alt News, as well as CJP spokesperson Saurav Das. Social media posts have alleged that Thakur funds organisations that are considered “anti-India.” These allegations, however, should be distinguished from the publicly documented funding relationships. 

Saurav Das’ Involvement and Questions Over His Funding

This started with questions asked by political commentator Abhijit Iyer-Mitra. While posting on X, Mitra questioned the income source of Saurav Das and added images of his house at Greater Kailash. Mitra said that the house where Saurav lives in GK1 is a 1,000-square-yard (9,000-square-foot) property and that the estimated monthly rent is ₹10 lakh. He questioned where Saurav was getting this money from. He also alleged that Saurav Das had failed the CLAT exam three times.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra said in a post on X, “The guard at the GK1 house has confirmed that Saurav Das lived there for a long time and vacated only after the protests. How did he live there without police verification? And no formal rent agreement?”

In an interview with The Pamphlet, Vijay Gajera, an investigative reporter, raised questions about Saurav Das’s source of income and alleged that he had received funding from the Thakur Family Foundation. He said, “Saurav Das has received funding from the Thakur Family Foundation.”

Saurav Das, COVID-19 Vaccine RTIs and Thakur Foundation Funding

During the time of COVID-19, Das became known for filing RTIs related to the vaccine approval process in India. As per reports by The Organiser, in 2021, Das sought information concerning the regulatory basis of how the government approved the COVID-19 vaccines made by Bharat Biotech and the Serum Institute of India.

While he was looking for evidence behind the approvals, the government refused to share some of the data, citing commercial confidentiality and other reasons.

Das didn't end it there. He continued to raise questions about the vaccine approval process and the government's decisions during COVID-19. Now, as per the openly available data of the Thakur Family Foundation, it is clear that in October 2021, Das was funded by the organization. The website of the organization states, “We made an award to Saurav Das to report issues related to Public Health in India.”

Das was not the only one getting funded by the Thakur Family Foundation during the time of COVID-19. The publicly available data shows that the foundation provided “awards” to many journalists, researchers, media organisations, and many other recipients. But this information is present in different public records, and the connection between them is not verified.

See Also: RTI Activist Amit Tiwari Responds to CJP Founder Abhijeet Dipke Calling Him a 'BJP Worker' Amid Education Funding Row

Other Organizations and Independent Journalists Funded by Thakur Foundation

Two of the organisations that received funding from the foundation are Scroll and The Wire. In 2020, Scroll was provided grants to do public-health reporting by the Thakur Family Foundation. The projects that were listed included COVID-19 testing, hospitals, India's drug regulator, vaccine trials, and contact tracing.The funding continued in 2021, when Scroll.in received an award from the foundation to support healthcare reporting. All this information has been disclosed on the foundation’s website. 

The second in the list is The Wire. As per The Organiser, The Wire disclosed data about a story by science journalist Priyanka Pulla, who received support through a public-health journalism grant from the foundation. Pulla has reported extensively on India's healthcare system, drug regulation, COVID-19, vaccines, and pharmaceutical quality. Some of this work was funded by the foundation, which the foundation has mentioned on its website.

While funding doesn’t necessarily mean that the reporting is false or influenced by the funder, people became skeptical and started questioning the motive of Dinesh Thakur behind this. Hence, many political commentators and online groups have accused the foundation of funding media outlets and civil-society groups to push what they describe as anti-India narratives.

Dinesh Thakur Response to These Allegations

In a post on X published on August 15, 2026, Dinesh Thakur wrote that over the last few weeks, several broadcast TV channels, and the right-wing “troll army” have been trying to sensationalize the grants given by the Thakur Family Foundation. He wrote that the information being used by media outlets is already publicly available on the Foundation’s website and added that all grant recipients are contractually required to disclose the funding in their work.

He then highlighted that all the grants made by the Foundation are in compliance with the law and pointed to grants given to government-run institutions. In the post, he wrote, “Many of the Foundation's grants have actually been made to government run institutions like the National Institute of Public Finance & Policy (NIPFP), three national law universities in Bengaluru, Delhi and Hyderabad, the ILS Law School, Pune and the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad.”

He wrote that the grants support work related to public health, civil liberties, judicial reforms, women’s scholarships, and public policy research. He further wrote, “Other large grants to civil society organizations have focused on issues like manual scavenging and the functioning of the RTI Act.”

Responding to those who have called him “anti-national,” Thakur mentioned that he has engaged with the present government at various levels. He wrote, “I am surprised because over the last decade the present government has invited and engaged with me at multiple levels ranging from the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PM-EAC), NITI Aayog, the Ministry of Health and the National Human Rights Commission.”

He mentioned that his conversations with the government have usually focused on drug quality and medicine supply, adding that some people in the government understand the problems with India’s drug supply system.

At the end of the post, he stated that he intends to continue his work despite the online criticism and warned those he believes are defaming him that he may pursue legal action.

(Edited by Harsh Pandey)

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