The ‘strategic’ publication of the NEET UG 2024 results on the same day as the results for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections has backfired royally for Modi 3.0. The NEET UG results were initially slated to be declared on 14th June. The preponement of ten days was supposed to be an opening masterstroke for the NDA’s electorally subdued third term. However, it has turned into an absolute nightmare for this anti-people regime as the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) multilayered mismanagement around the entrance exam for future medical professionals has escalated into an outpouring of rage across the nation from every section of stakeholders- students, parents, teachers, and future aspirants. The fallacy behind the constitution of an omnipotent, omnipresent entity like NTA requires a separate discussion, hence it will be explored in a later article. The NEET scam on its own has unearthed crores of rupees of fraud around paper leaks, exam malpractices, coaching mafias etc. with all fingers pointing towards the grossly incompetent and corrupt NTA. The NEET-UG fiasco was followed by the UGC-NET cancellation due to it being terribly conducted, followed by an abrupt and indefinite postponing of CSIR-NET as well as NEET PG; NTA being the common factor for all these tests. Even in a liberal democracy such brazen disregard pertaining to the lives of crores of students and youth would have led at least to the resignation of the education minister. Albeit in a fascist regime, things go contrary to popular expectations despite thousands of students coming out on the streets in protest.
All across the nation such protests are becoming more and more common with rampant corruption in most government service exams for the past few years. With rising unemployment, unemployed youths are resorting to fraudulent measures as a last bid to secure some kind of secure job. The NEET/NET scam too points towards a deeper systemic issue. Despite the utter desperation facing student-youth, the state has unleashed all its terror onto the protesters for demanding their rights. As hundreds of students turned up at the education ministry recently to demand the resignation of the re-appointed education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, visuals of a brutal police crackdown have emerged from the site. Police personnel can be seen brutalising the protesting students for demanding the bare minimum liability from the education minister. The situation is so grave that even ABVP has been forced to hold protests against the NEET scam. Conveniently, their target has been the National Testing Agency rather than the RSS-BJP regime that has orchestrated the centralisation and commercialisation of education leading to the situation at hand. Moreover, the demand of scrapping NTA has to be combined with the demand to scrap the National Education Policy 2020, an idea that is completely lost on the ABVP.
A discourse on the dismal educational scenario is incomplete without tracing its roots to the 90’s neoliberal reforms. These reforms transformed education into a commodity that any player, be it domestic or foreign, can have a kick at. The grand project that was started back then in the Congress regime has been perfected by the RSS-BJP. With worsening economic crisis, the semblance of liberal democratic values that existed earlier have been reduced to Modi’s tears. Deepening economic crisis has brought with it intense crackdown by the state machinery on all forms of dissent. Police high-handedness on students demanding NEET retest in Delhi to student-activists peacefully raising awareness on the Gaza genocide in Bengaluru, all point towards an economic crisis that is making it impossible for the ruling classes to maintain the old order irrespective of the party at the helm of affairs. All forms of dissent, be it on economic demands or political demands, are being handled with an iron fist.
The state’s essential role as a tool to maintain the hegemony of the ruling classes may not be very apparent except during times of serious economic strife. The current situation is one such run. Shrinkage of democratic spaces is palpable everywhere. Even the new criminal laws encoded in the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita are going to be implemented 1st July onwards. In the Karnataka context, it is seen that the Congress government that came in with a huge mandate riding high on promises of remedying people’s economic grievances, has neither taken back the Factories Amendment act that stipulates 12 hour work days and women’s night shifts, nor the anti-farmer laws, a national version of which was retracted after lakhs of farmers laid siege in the highways around the national capital for more than a year. The ban on protests outside Freedom Park in the city of Bengaluru still persists. The ban serves the dual purpose of sanitising the city, making it attractive for foreign investments and relegating all protests, particularly those waged by the working class, invisible to the eyes of the general public.
The situation may seem grim. Despite that, it is an imminent task to connect immediate economic demands with political issues and organise people on the basis of it. As the state through its hundred of agents declare war on the people, the people must also take an iron resolve to fight back. This is the only way to fight this juggernaut.
