Gen Zzz Protest

How Many Look like Students is a Moot Question

I was in college between 1975 and 1982 and more than once I vividly recall the mad frenzy of students chasing a copy of the so-called exam question paper that had leaked. We spent more time chasing this elusive leaked paper than studying. How did this work?

One weak link either at the lowest level or at the level where someone had custody of the question paper decides to leak it for benefits to self. Every such transaction has a buyer and a seller. A seller doesn’t actively go looking for a buyer. It’s the buyer who using various means “seduces” the seller into sharing the information – its deliberate for specific reasons. The very fact that majority of exam papers DON’T get leaked, but only some is proof of the fact that the buyers are few and do so for a specific reason. The student community by and large are honest.

Once having purchased the exam paper, contrary to popular perception, the person doesnt go around distributing it like confetti. They at best share with a few select friends to recover their investment and demonstrate their clout. What gets circulated widely is usually a edited version and the leak is classified as one, based on how little it was edited.  

While older generations like me can vouch for this exam paper leak from 50 years back, public records are more recent as can be seen below.

List of Paper Leaks in India

This exam paper leak has been par for the course since long and based on how thick and long a political stick it created, it got media traction and public reaction. At a logical level, a minister or even a very senior level officer is rarely if ever involved in any leak. At their age and position, the money to be made is small change nor do they have children young enough to be helped pass exams. Even if they did do it, they do it in such a classy manner that nobody would know.

It's always the smaller fry who get lured by some reward and leak the papers and it takes an incredibly stupid seller to distribute it at large without editing. In the present case, the government included, accepted the paper leak and by an amazing coincidence the CJI gave a brand name for the protest and a brilliantly orchestrated protest happened within days. Again logically studying the spread of the protest, one can ask serious questions, but let us assume that this was organic, spontaneous etc. This assumption is what brings me to ask some questions for which I have no answers, and nobody seems bothered to ask these, and of course no student protestor is even thinking of answering them.

1. What did you achieve?
2. Has the paper leak problem been solved with specific medium/long term systems?
3. Has any reforms in education system discussed or agreed that will benefit students?
4. Any change planned/ agreed that will improve your education experience, job opportunity or a promising future?
5. Is the political career of Dharmendra Pradhan finished & ended?
6. Has anybody filed an FIR against the Minister and Govt against this leak?
7. Have you given any set of recommendations to the Govt that would improve the examination system?
8. Did you read the laws/bills presented by the Govt and offer your views and suggestions?
9. Did you attend the parliament session that debated the bills and observe what happened?
10. Did you have any MP who specifically debated or raised the suggestions that you have for educational reforms?
11. Did you demand that a committee be formed to study this holistically and which must include students you called leaders?

The list can go on and on and so again WTH did you really achieve? A ministers resignation and the moment that happened everybody disappeared including going back to foreign lands.

In short this was never about exams paper leak, education reforms etc – this was just about a huge ego battle to get a minister to resign so that someone could gloat over a political victory that has eluded them in the polls.

As responsible students, having a responsible demand, is it truly possible that you were intent on destroying public property and vehicles or was this orchestrated by those who were NOT students?

Many including me were impressed with the creativity in the memes, posters that were used in the protest and they surely made an impact. However, what was troubling is the misogynist and abusive posters with one even dragging in the lady PM of a European country in a vulgar way. This is not about whether the target was Modi or tomorrow a Rahul or a Priyanka. To me any such is unacceptable.

Now LGBTQ, a Saree, a Bikini, being a WOMAN, all are weapons to MOCK others - but ACCEPTABLE

However, I would be more than happy to accept this – provided – the very same youngsters, especially the ladies, are willing to accept such language and behaviour by others when dealing with them. Suddenly, even the most innocent question/remark becomes sexist, misogynist, and such folks go complain to HR or whoever else they can. They cry victim loudly. Their ability to handle the very same language and behaviour, which they proudly flaunt, when directed at them, is slim and none – and that is what is troubling. They are setting a bar that they have no hope in hell of crossing when they themselves must confront it, but with such posters they are normalising it. This is one thing that can come back to bite them, badly.

Now for a reality check – majority of the educational institutions in India are owned, managed by politicians across the political spectrum.  Do read this report – you may just get a real education without having to face exams.

Politicians Own Educational Institutions

Highlights are below.

• Across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, 60% to 78% of private professional colleges (Engineering, Medical, Dental, Nursing) are directly founded, chaired, or controlled by politicians, political dynasties, or partisan trusts.
• The private schooling market of around 23% is highly dominated/ backed by corporate chains, religious trusts. But political power acts as a major regulatory accelerator for land grants, CBSE/state NOCs, and board affiliations.
• In Karnataka about 30 out of 46 colleges are run by either politicians or religious institutions representing politically dominant castes or minorities.
• Congress ministers like Shamanur Shivashankarappa, M B Patil, G Parameshwara, DK Shivakumar and other ministers run many educational institutions.
• BJP Politicians like Prabhakar Kore, Veeranna Charantimath, Shashil G Namoshi, and others run many educational institutions.
• Congress and BJP politicians like Deshmukh family, Late Kadam family, Bhujbal, DY Patil, Girish Mahajan and others run educational institutions in Maharashtra.
• Lovely professional university is run by Mittal of AAP.
• Members from other parties run professional colleges in the state and reports talk of between 30 and 60% of the educational institutions being owned/ managed by Politicians.

To the students who protested, used abusive language in reels, pictures, posters they proudly flaunted - I can only say, wake up before you celebrate victory which in my view is an empty rhetorical quickie & nothing more. You were played, used, and except for the powerful, the rest of you would be discarded and forgotten. 

A system across the political and societal spectrum will remember that a similar student protest can be a major headache for them and they will target the foot soldiers who genuinely felt aggrieved, participated and used SM for their 30 seconds of fame. A few years from now as you look forward to a career, a visa, a vital job opening, etc, a future in which these SM reels, pictures and sound bites will remain online for posterity – these can/will come back to haunt you for the rest of your lives. It’s not for nothing that our ancestors said – "Act in haste, repent at leisure."

Post Script – There is a students protest going on in Jharkhand for paper leak, they have also been beaten up by cops etc – but is there any media coverage? Any of the student protestors who travelled to Delhi and made a statement now in Jharkhand in support? Anybody offering crores of rupees in legal fees to help students? Any political leader visiting them? Suddenly, nobody in the media is even calling them students. They are termed political workers unlike in Delhi where however old or riff raff indulging in violence, they were called students.

One small digression.

There is an old Shatrughan Sinha/ Kadar Khan movie in which in the opening scene Shatrughan is ready to shoot Kadar the villain but doesnt do so and in the last scene, the exact same scene arrives and Kadar Khan, tongue in cheek remarks - "Agar mujhe maarna thha, pehle hi maarta, itna sab bakwas karne ki kya zaroorat thha?" or "If you wanted to kill me, you could have killed me in the beginning, where was the need for so much bullshit?". Similiarly, without taking away any moral courage/credit from Sonam Wangchuk, did it need a 26 day fast to get just this inconsequential assurance? Just Asking. 

Sonam Wangchuk fasted and created an impact. Suddenly he was moved to hospital, while claiming it was against his will – yet pictures showed him/family smiling and making a demand to be moved to a private hospital. Then he broke his fast by accepting juice from Govt Ministers and later proclaimed that his trust had been broken since the pictures were NOT supposed to be made public. Seriously? If Sonam were so concerned then why didn’t he invite one of the student leaders to come break his fast, share the pictures himself and ensure the Govt ministers didn’t get publicity?

This is one blog of questions that is officially leaked with no answers expected. And by the way - the movement - Cockroach Janata Party - has expanded its agenda now that the Minister resigned.