A jinxed exam

By early third millennium, higher education in India especially that related to undergraduate and postgraduate medicine and allied specialties, and admission to the same had fallen into the hands of unscrupulous private players, who sensed ‘geese that lay golden eggs’ by imparting those courses.

Students aspiring for admission to those courses had to appear for multiple entrance exams conducted by states, universities, private institutions, and ‘deemed universities’(whatever that means). While admission to government medical institutions required students to take entrance tests conducted by respective states, that into private colleges rested significantly on money-power. Admission to Medical seats in prestigious private medical colleges were available in the market for huge money amounting to crores, collected from students and their families as inflated fees and donations. Preferably in cash. Some of these colleges issued no receipts for money paid for the ‘purchase’.  Admission into prestigious central Institutes were obtained through entrance exams conducted by individual Institutes. 

In short, admission to courses in the government sector, both in the states and central Institutes were available on merit through entrance tests. Those to prestigious private ones could be ‘purchased’ by paying truly big money.

The latter ensured money-power elbowed out merit, aptitude and attitude, crucial to don the white coat. Resulting in young doctors of questionable qualities demanded by noblest of professions, which primarily centered on empathy for humanity.

This marked the starting point of medical profession’s degradation. Estrangement of the sick from those treating was born right there. Marking the exact site where ruins of once sacrosanct ‘doctor-patient relationship’ can be found.     

It is to circumvent disparity in methodology of admission to these courses and to do away with money-power, that a national-level entrance exam, National Eligibility cum Entrance test (NEET) was promulgated in India. NEET sought to create uniform admission standards, reduce stress on students from multiple examinations, and to promote merit-based selection.

NEET UG, to qualify for undergraduate medical course, is taken by students who study physics, chemistry and biology as core subjects in Class XII, while NEET PG, to qualify for postgraduate medical courses is taken by candidates who have already completed MBBS, and those aspiring for postgraduate doctoral and diploma programs.

The first NEET in the country was conducted by CBSE in 2013. It was paused the next year as the Supreme Court ruled that the Medical Council of India lacked legal authority to conduct a single entrance test for all state and private medical colleges, and also because such an exam infringed on autonomy of state governments and private institutions. Following the apex Court’s ruling, NEET was replaced in 2014 and 2015 by the older All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) conducted by CBSE.

The Supreme Court, in 2016 recalled its 2013 judgment. The bench admitted it ‘acted too hastily’, without considering procedural flaws alluded to by a dissenting judge. So much so for judiciary’s sensitivity to thousands of India’s aspiring doctors!

NEET made a legal comeback in 2016, conducted by the CBSE. On June 6, 2018, National Testing Agency (NTA) was officially mandated by the government to conduct NEET UG. It is the NTA that has been conducting NEET exams since then.

NEET eventually emerged world’s largest competitive examination with more than 22 lakh students taking the test annually to secure admission to 1.3 lakh MBBS and over 70,000 postgraduate (MD/MS/DNB) seats, in addition to 27,000 BDS, 52,000 AYUSH, and thousands of veterinary seats.

A dark syndicate

Cutthroat completion for admission to medical courses through NEET opened the floodgates to so-called ‘coaching centers’ (read mini dungeons), where aspiring doctors were virtually incarcerated by their families till they qualified. Courses offered by coaching centers were no less cheap. It cost a fortune, having families avail bank loans to have their wards taste success.

Coaching centres vied for the crown of that producing ‘the most successful NEET aspirants’. Competition among students taking NEET reflected on competition between coaching centers.

Kota in Rajasthan known for its branded institutes, large student hostels, and comprehensive test-prep infrastructure is India’s ‘Coaching capital’. Other places known for ‘successful coaching centers’ being Sikar in Rajasthan, Delhi NCR, Pala and Kochi in Kerala.

Competition among students and coaching centers opened the backdoor to those running coaching centers, bureaucrats officiating NTA, politicians, some of whom owned coaching centers, teachers setting question papers, and numerous middlemen. All of them formed an unholy syndicate that had the Union Education Minister for its Godfather. This syndicate which eventually became well-entrenched in the scheme-of-things that involved NEET made sure question papers meant for the highly competitive exam were available in the market for humongous sums of money.

Thus, paper leaks involving NEET became an annual ordeal for lakhs who toiled and burnt the midnight oil for an entire year. Big money families availed as bank loans to fructify their wards’ aspiration for the white coat remained wasted. Swindled audaciously by the syndicate in broad daylight. Paper leaks involved not only NEET, but other competitive exams like PSE, UPSC, Civil Services exams in numerous states, and even Class X and XII school leaving exams. The syndicate ensured the backdoor to qualification remained wide open, if paid for.

The 2026 fiasco

NEET of 2026 held on May 3 wasn’t any different. Shortly after the test, coaching networks and teachers flagged that a viral PDF containing over 400 questions had an extensive match with the actual test. Digital Forensic analysis later showed the leaked question images were created about 10 days prior to May 3. Following investigations by local police and public outcry, NTA officially cancelled the May 3 examination, and entrusted the probe to CBI. More than 22 lakh dreams lay shattered. As many families lost precious and hard-earned money. A year’s rigorous preparation by lakhs went to the dogs. On May 12, first formal arrests in the coordinated multi-state leak chain were made.

Arrests notwithstanding, about 20 medical aspirants heartbroken over their wasted efforts took their own lives. Moreover, even though a retest of yet another botched NEET exam was held on June 21 2026, reportedly ‘personally monitored’ by the Prime Minister himself, about 2, 79,848 candidates who took the cancelled exam of May 3 did not take the retest. Probably having lost faith in the jinxed test. Over 2 lakh dreams, resultantly remained just dreams.

The roach influence

The 2026 NEET fiasco wasn’t taken lying down like its preceding high jacked ones. The just-formed Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) took up the cause of the youth taken for a jolly good ride in the NEET 2026 bandwagon, with the then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, under whose very nose NEET 2026 snuffed out many a dream, behind the wheel.

The CJP organized a Parliament march on July 20, 2026 to protest against the centre’s habit of making monkeys out of Indian youth on account of NEET and other competitive exams. The roaches, along with the Gen Z and their parents, treated disdainfully like scum by the government intended to march peacefully from Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to Parliament which was in Winter Session.

The CJP demanded immediate sacking of the then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, whose incompetency catalyzed the cancer that had infiltrated India’s education sector, compensation of Rs 1 crore each to families of youth who committed suicide on account of cancellation of NEET’s 2026 edition, comprehensive fixes and accountability regarding competitive examination infrastructure and prevention of paper leaks, and immediate release of climate/education activist Sonam Wangchuk who undertook an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar expressing solidarity for crusaders against a corroded Indian education sector.

The protest march was indeed peaceful, until it reached quite close to Parliament, when out of the blue, a melee erupted among the protesters, with the police and security forces seen to engage violently with the protestors who were seen on visual media to run helter-skelter, as they were lati-charged and fired upon. Those who slipped and fell on Delhi’s streets on the water from water cannons were beaten like hapless dogs with nailed latis. While tear gas had many huff and puff, and pellet bullets injured many. The protestors who had carried no stones as they set out from Jantar Mantar were seen to throw stones, available in a stone-laden lorry that appeared out of nowhere. The stones injured numerous policemen and security personnel. From where did the stone-laden lorry arrive? Who threw the first stone?  Police firing on protestors had numerous parallels with shots fired at unarmed Indians with no violent intensions at Jallianwalla Bagh by fellow Indians at the orders of a certain Englishman, brigadier-General Reginald Dyer on April 13, 1919, at the height of freedom struggle. On July 20, 2026, considerable numbers of armed Indians, supposed to be law-keepers fired on unarmed fellow young Indians, enchained to a broken, corrupt and incompetent education system on the orders of ‘you-know-who.’

Protestors who marched on NDA-ruled Bihar’s streets in support of Delhi’s protestors were fired on by AK-47s, usually used against terrorists, and cross-border infiltrators. 

The gory sight before Parliament, where those supposed to protect those being crushed by the state’s ruthless hand, sat in session, aired by primetime TV channels had the nation shell-shocked. The roaches and protestors they led won the nation’s sympathy. And ire.

Public opinion against the government fuelled by primetime TV channels telecasting the state’s brutal bloodletting of its own citizens which put Tiananmen to shame, and a social media working overtime spewing out reports of bloodletting outside Parliament, and the CJP who labelled their demands ‘non-negotiable’ had the government on the back foot.

For the very first instance since 2014, sweat appeared on the brow of Prime Minister Modi and gang. Unused to being spoken to, eyeball-to-eyeball, and being mocked at by placards deriding the government through satire and jest, carried by protestors in Delhi, the government liaised with CJP’s spokespersons Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, through Union Minister of Health JP Nadda and Minister of State (independent charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Jitendra Singh at a neutral venue at New Delhi’s Constitutional Club. The CJP resolutely stuck to its demands.

How could a government, who until then was acutely anaphylactic to different opinion, dissent and criticism, which were synonyms for its version of ‘sedition’, and one which was scared to engage civilly with the opposition in Parliamentary debates, and who’s head avoided news conferences ever think of sacking one of its ministers who had served the government for 12 years? The central government never looked paler as it did on those trying days. The cry for Dharmendra Pradhan’s blood rose from every Indian youth. Angry, disillusioned and frustrated with a government insensitive to their odds like an incompetent education sector, unemployment, and a government which cared more about temples that once existed under mosques that managed to remain intact, than it did for ram shackled and dilapidated schools, led by a person who denied his human origin, calling himself God, and who did much better at consecrating temples and performing yagnas and pujas than governing the nation, meriting the title of ‘Pradhan Tantri’ than Pradhan Mantri.

CJP’s interlocutors, persistently prevailed upon those of the government’s. They insisted ‘enough was enough’. That the nation’s youth had been through enough nonsense since 2014.

An unprecedented resignation in vain?

 On July 25 2026, the unthinkable happened. Dharmendra Pradhan, one of the senior ministers of arguably the world’s most arrogant and vainglorious council of ministers put in his papers. Pradhan’s was ultimate sacrifice. By resigning by himself, ‘concerned at the nation falling into the hands of antinationals’, the fall-guy spared his boss the embarrassment of showing the door to one among his haughty kitchen crew.

What did Pradhan’s resignation represent? It represented the stark fact that monstrous, and seemingly invincible Goliaths still fall before defiant, focused, determined, yet lowly Davids of these times.

Has Pradhan’s resignation succeeded in cleansing Indian education sector of its stinking rot? The answer is a resounding ‘NO’. Pradhan, after all, was only the tip of a grotesque iceberg that the Indian education sector had degenerated into, in the hands of Hindutva forces. The RSS had arm-twisted the Modi government to alter history in textbooks by vilifying Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru and glorifying the likes of Godse and Sarvarkar. It appointed it’s sympathizers as vice-chancellors of India’s numerous universities, seeking to alter the very soul of India by corrupting impressionable young minds studying from badly mutilated textbooks that distorted facts, and espoused a narrative of hate, division, megalomania and totalitarianism.

Therefore, there’s nothing to burst crackers over Pradhan’s resignation. Only the chunk of a malignancy that had aggressively infiltrated the Indian education sector had been resected in Pradhan’s resignation. The more dangerous metastases of the cancer still remained to be tackled.

Pradhan’s resignation is therefore no panacea for a sinking education sector. For two reasons. Firstly, the government was in a tearing hurry, and more interested in slyly passing the Vande Matram Bill in Parliament, while it foot-dragged on the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Act, 2026, exposing its priority. Secondly, a resigning Pradhan passed the baton to head one of the most important ministries- that of Education- responsible for educating the nation’s young to a person most undeserving, unsuitable and even dangerous to do justice to the sacrosanct ministry.    Prahlad Joshy, chosen to succeed Pradhan was in the forefront to defend and justify premature release of 11 men convicted of gang raping the 5-month pregnant Bilkis Bano during the 2002 post-Godra riots in Gujarat, and was in the forefront to personally garland, and distribute laddus to molesters of the pregnant Bilkis before the prison from which they were prematurely released. That such a man would head an important ministry involved in educating the nation’s youth left nothing to cheer for. What was, therefore achieved through Pradhan’s resignation? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

What then did CJP’s protest march to Parliament on July 20 achieve?

The July uprising spearheaded by a generation of young Indians called Gen-Z, declared their daring to be defiant, and daring to call a spade a spade on the government’s face. The Gen-Z through the uprising served notice to an autocratic government by declaring they cared two hoots for a head-of-state who preferred to be beside a puja than before news reporters at news conferences, and opposition MPs in Parliament, when those were called for. The march showcased a Generation which refused to take for granted, and, in fact pooh-poohed crocodile tears the Prime Minister shed on various issues irrelevant to them, and his ill-meant hypocritical exercises like ‘Pareeksha Pe Charcha’ he embarked on before children took exams. Unlike its predecessors, Gen-Y, and Gen-X, which took such irrelevance lying down, and in fact, glorified them.

On July 20, the Gen-Z, by marching peacefully, facing water jets, pellet bullets, nailed latis and teargas targeted at them by a cowardly state from Jantar Mantar to Parliament piggy-bagged on NEET to ventilate it’s frustration on the rot that had stemmed the growth( in real terms) of a nation they were supposedly citizens of.