NEW DELHI — Thousands of students took to the streets across several Indian states this week, clashing with riot police as anger boils over over the integrity of national recruitment and entrance exams. From the bustling streets of Delhi to protest sites in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the message remains the same: the system is broken.
Police deployed water cannons and batons to disperse demonstrators in Prayagraj on Tuesday, where students gathered to protest the recent cancellation and rescheduling of high-stakes government recruitment papers. The unrest follows a series of paper leaks that have effectively stalled the career paths of millions of young Indians.
The crisis centers on the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body responsible for administering the NEET-UG medical entrance exam and the UGC-NET, a test required for university teaching positions. Both were compromised by irregularities. The government scrapped the UGC-NET just one day after it was held, citing “integrity issues,” while the NEET-UG has faced allegations of massive fraud, including leaked question papers and inflated scores.
“We study for years, spending our parents’ life savings, only to see the paper sold on Telegram for a few thousand rupees,” said Ankit Kumar, a 22-year-old student who traveled from a nearby district to join the demonstrations. “This isn’t just about a test. It’s about our future being auctioned off.”
Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has acknowledged the “irregularities” but has resisted calls for his resignation. The government announced a high-level committee to review the NTA’s functioning, promising to overhaul the testing process. For many students, these promises ring hollow. They’ve heard them before.
The opposition has seized on the unrest, accusing the administration of systemic negligence. They argue that the NTA has become a “hub for corruption,” failing to secure the digital and physical chain of custody for papers that determine the trajectory of countless lives.
With NEET-UG counseling scheduled to begin in weeks, the pressure on the government is mounting. Students aren’t just demanding a re-test; they’re demanding a total clean-up of a recruitment machine that, according to them, has ceased to function.
As the sun set on the protest sites, police remained stationed on street corners, and the students, exhausted but unyielding, promised to return. The next set of exams is scheduled for later this month, but for those on the front lines, the trust in the process is already gone.
