All eyes on Indian students
Hey , to all my desi mutuals and mutuals from other fandoms and stuff. I need your support for a thing that is going on in India. There's a protest going on in India that mainly stared as a protest against how every year NEET (National eligibility entrance test) exam papers / answers get leaked, but it has now turned into grievances against every tyrannical thing the government has done (trust me there's a lot). In this post I'll discuss what the protest is for, what has been going on and what the response of the government was. And I just want people from all over the world to talk about it. To expose what's been going on in India so that international news channels too talk about it.
Student's grievances
Neet paper leak (been going on from 2022); this year was the last straw when the paper was leaked instead of taking strict actions the government used the help of Indian airforce to conduct NEET exam anew. And this was a problem because NEET is a very stressful examination. Around 2 millions students appear for this exam every year, it's an exam to get into med school. It's extremely competitive as people struggle to get into government aided med schools. And it's the only affordable way a middle class or student belonging from a not-rich family can become a doctor. Every year people go through so much mental trauma especially girls as the checking before entering the examination hall is extremely strict to the point in certain cities girls has to open their bras and even this year a girl has to 'undress' to prove that she was on her period. Invigilators cut off pockets in your pants or jeans / cut off any metal button that your outfit might have.
On top of going through all this, the exam paper got leaked and the examination result became invalid. So students now had to give Re-NEET Exam. Mind you these students aren't just freshies, some have been appearing for NEET for over 5 yrs except every time somehow the paper leaks, chairman of the holding committee of this exam (NTA) got suspended in 2024 and yet paper leaks continued. Common denominator is our Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Now NEET aspirants aren't the only sufferers. This year when CBSE board exam (the English medium board under central government that holds secondary and higher secondary exams (A and O levels )) results came out, student were astonished at the low marks they were given. Some expected 90 but were awarded 60. Now every year, what they do is, students write on answer scripts provided by the board, the same answer scripts are sent to various CBSE teachers who have no connection to the students whatsoever and they check the copies. This year what they did is, they hired a cheap company to try out their OSM (On screen marking) method. Where they were supposed to send scanned copies of the answer scripts to teachers and the teachers would evaluate the copies from their own devices. Instead it was clear that someone took photos of the answer scripts using phone camera, as a result most of the pages were blurry at best and at worst half the pages were missing. When people applied to see their answer scripts (which required them to pay money btw) all people got were blank copies and blurry likes that was supposed to be their writings. It wasn't the teachers fault, it was government who hired a cheap third party company who promised to scan the copies but failed to go through the promise. Why ? Because the government isn't ready to pay any more than they did to get a good company with perfect records.
Now this doesn't end here, now that students are protesting and sharing on twitter and instagram about their grievances, none of the news channels were covering it, moreover the kids were called 'anti-nationals' and 'terrorists'. On top of that schools and various teachers were being paid to say that the kids are lying and that their own students have reported that nothing of the sort happened, or they were encouraging their own students not to post stuff about this matter on social media. But despite that a bunch of teachers did speak out on favour of the students.
Now a kid ,hacked the cbse website (and played 'bad apple' 😭on the website) and showed how vulnerable the website truly was. The website was so vulnerable and hackable that it's master password is displayed if you open the website in developer mode. And even they got called anti-national. They literally showed that the website could be hacked by anyone with just a little hacking knowledge and you could access the account and marks of any student and you could even change their result. But even then the government did nothing. Instead Dharmendra Pradhan said whatever he's saying are lies because everyone know board exam isn't conducted online (😭😭).
Anyway this is the story of NEET and boards. Other than this there are yet other exams that gor disrupted or leaked this year, UPSC , the most difficult exam to crack has asked questions that were so difficult and out of syllabus in its prelims that people were asking what's the point of having a syllabus if you're not going to stick to it. SSC GD exams gor leaked. Last year some GATE exam paper for some subjects for leaked as well. And many more cases of gross display of breaking academic integrity has students ruled up. EDIT: This year the CLAT (exam to become lawyer) exam paper was also leaked and and NIFT exam (Exam for a premier fashion technology institute) also had a scandal.
Other things that aren't related to the original problem but people are protesting against anyways (because these things are tyrranically introduced in the 'Modi-regime')
Okay so a few weeks ago, the Trans bill was passed in India. What this entails is previously Trans people did not have to 'prove' their transness, they had surgery if they wanted, changed their legal name and gender and that was that. But now trans people have to 'prove' their trans -ness by having a board of doctors check their private parts and the entire ordeal is extremely traumatizing and intrusive.
Back then some queer voices did protes but it didn't cause a nation wide protest because unfortunately transphobia is a real problem here as well.
People in Thane and Vizag were protesting against data centres that are scheduled to be set up in recidencial areas. Given the temperature hike in our country due to pollution and El nino effect, India face one of the worst summers and several people all over India died of heatstroke. Mumbai a few days ago has just 30 days of fresh drinking water available. It was crucial for us to protest against these data centres. Read more about it here
A 15 + day protest has been going on in Bundelkhand by the tribal community living there protesting the "Ken- betwa project". its supposed to be a developmental project but because of this these people will be displaced without compensation, theyll literally be left without water as the water from the river is going to go towards the project. and theyll literallly die. so they were going on Hunger strikes, Jal satyagraha (stansing in water) and funeral pyre protest (people were standing with a noose on their neck and lying on a faux funeral pyre showing the givernment exactly what its going to do to these people. The government as usual is non responsive to ALL of these protests.
The new introduction of e20 fuel; meaning our fuel (petrol) won't be 100% petrol anymore, it'll have 20% ethanol. They're claiming that it's to make it more 'ecofriendly' but the war e20 fuel is made is highly carcinogenic. Also indian vehicles aren't made to work on e20 fuels, it'll damage the engine before a person could even be done with replaying their car loans 😭. Would it make the petrol cheaper ? For the government yes, but public will buy 20% less fuel for the same amount of price. It'll save the government money. Not the people.
The government is basically planning a genocide on the tribal people of Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The state of Assam is downing in flood current and the disaster relief by airforce just dropped their rashion into the water in frmnt of their eyes. Now it's unusable.
The state of Manipur has been drowning in dissent but the government has cut of internet connection there so that no news from there reaches the general public, all the news channels always speak in BJP's favours and Manipur is never mentioned. The state if burning and the government is doing nothing to help them.
So what's haappening in Delhi (And students protest elsewhere)?
It started as a protest for the NEET students. Because of Re-NEET, 20 students have committed suicide, it was a protest initially for our PM and our Education Minister to issuee an apology to them and resign. The studenst were protesting under the leadership of founder of cockroach janta party, Abhijit Deepke and renowned founder, inventor, and social activist Sonam Wangchuk.
Sonam sir sat on a hunger strike in protest with the students agianst the negligence of tye government. Peaceful protests were going on but Media and Police were creating a narrative that it wasn't peaceful. Then after Sonam sir had sat for hunger strike for about 20 days, the government sent police who called him names, insulted him and manhandled him into an ambulance, forcibly taking him to a hospital, and issuing a ruling that he won't be allowed out of the hospital until he is fit or broke his fast. The government still didn't reply or apologize or acknowledge the protest other than sending police (goons).
On the other hand, students protest was going on but now police started becoming violent. Police hit anyone and everyone in the crowd all while none of the protesters carried anything that could be used as weapons or to protect themselves. They tazed kids who were drenched in rain. Hit people with batons with rusty nails stuck out of them. We're using tear gas and sometimes EXPIRED tear gas (which is cianide and is fatal). They were using pellet guns, causing a person to almost go blind. And ming you students of all ages, minors to people persuing doctors, teaches, old people, parents of kids who committed suicide, all were present in the crowd.
Some kids recorded on their phones that a particular policeman has arrested them illegally and were telling them "don't show your face anywhere near the protest area or I'll put 50gm -50 gms of powder (cocaine) each and ruin your lives"
A BUNCH of policemen were groping underage students and beating women's butts using their wooden batons . A 11 year old girl overhead policeman talking that apparently all the girls in the protests are 'callgirls/ prostitutes' who came here to pick up their 'client'. Male policemen were found slapping girls.
Policemen were found robbing deliverymen who came to deliver food that the students ordered for themselves during the protest. Several policemen even threatened the delivery agenst not to deliver food in the area and since then therea no way to get food unless someone physically gets them, which is difficult as there are a lot of students.
A particular NGO was working towards raising funds, government froze their bank account so that they're unable to access the money OR people aren't able to donate any more. The same NGO claimed that they set up biodegradable toilets for women to use but policemen threatened them to not set those up.
They cut off internet connection, so that people couldn't communicate. So people started using bitchat and other similar bluetooth based apps to communicate with their loved ones who were in the protest. Now government has issued a bill to block tye GitHub link to bitchat so that people aren't able to use it.
Colleges and schools are discouraging kids to post anything negative about the government. College kids are just reprimanded. Parents of school kids are being sent a Google form where they're asked about how many insta account their kids have and if they post political content. And regardless if the child is the one handling the insta account 'ask them to deactivate right now'.
Numerous Content creators shared accounts of how they were emailed by anonymous people asking to make reels praising the current government and speaking against the students protest.
Response of government (and media)
The government was initially waiting on for this whole thing to blow over but when they realised we aren't going anywhere, several ministers (not the PM, education minister or anyone from the Centre) met up with Sonam sir on day 24 to break his fast. And he did.
And our Prime minister has been making insta reels for the last 2 days, stating that 'fast-track' court will be held to bring the peple responsible for paper leak asap. But it was instantly refutes as the chief justice of India even REFUSED to listen to what tye students problems where.
Also the CBI (FBI but for Indians) , had to let go of the person who was claimed to be responsible for the paper leaks in 2024. Due to lack of evidence. So the fats travk court was basically a gimmick to calm the youths
The government IT cell is trying to pass of old clips of celebrations and people gathering to enjoy firecrackers to convince people that the protest was infact not peaceful and clain that studenst had weapons on them. We didn't, acquiring a gun isn't easy in India.
Most celebrities are afraid of their next movie being banned by the government so they kelo to themselves without commenting a single thing on all the issues that was going on.
Government still hasn't taken responsibility for all the 22 kids that killed themselves this year, the CBSE students whos life is ruined because getting into their dream uni needed them to get 75% which thei didn't get because of the gross negligence of the government. Didn't apologise for the kids that gor killed on this protest due to police brutality. Didn't apologise for causing these kids this much trouble. The government did NOT take accountability. So for now Sonam Wangchuk sir's fast may have broken but the protest will continue.
Im collecting evidences and videos from insta and X and will link them soon
All eyes on Indian students
All eyes on Manipur
All eyes on Assam
JAI HIND 🇮🇳
