The Right to (fair?) Education.

2026 Day 205. #PersonalDays.

India has struggled with virtually everything since it has gained independence. I often hear my parents and grandparents talk about how life was much simpler and easier in their times and how India is absolutely degrading as a country. There is corruption everywhere, and things are moving unsatisfactorily for the common man.

The current protests in India have stemmed from a single point of failure.

National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, or simply NEET are conducted by the government for admission to medical sciences. This can be thought of as the SATs exclusively for anyone wanting to study medicine. About 2 Million students appeared for the exams in 2026.

While there have been issues with leaked paper in the past years, this year has taken a turn for the worst, or maybe the best. Everyone is upset, those who wanted to appear for the exam in the future, others who did, their parents, their neighbours and everyone else. This has sparked national outrage and the public demanded the resignation of the Education Minister.

The protests have been fuelled more so by the CJP (Cockroach Janta Party) which has struggle of its own, and by the 16 day hunger strike by activist Sonam Wangchuk which was abruptly ended by the government citing safety of the individual.

Now the protests have taken a turn from simple strikes. We have police attacking students, children, and everyone present in the name of security. The protestors are crying foul and demand that such force is unnecessary while they are simply demanding the resignation of a minister who has utterly failed at his job.

These are the facts of the last few days of protests in India.

The protestors demand the resignation of the education minister but to what effect?

Leaking such large scale examinations is not hard in my opinion. The more points of operation, the more points of failure. While writing software it is advised to reuse trusted libraries and tools as much as possible. Writing your own code or using new un-tested code can be dangerous in production.

Sadly, this logic cannot be applied when humans are involved. They do not follow a strict logic, have debatable code of ethics, and can be manipulated. Thus, the leaks might not have much to do with the education minister himself, but also the people involved in between.

Beyond this, removing the so called “head” of the country’s education, would do very little. This is not a call in support of the minister but a call to where we should actually be paying attention as Indians.

Corruption is not a single point of failure of the government. It is a well-oiled system running parallel to the infrastructure that is available to the general public. This parallel infrastructure that people access with money has grown so much that it has completely replaced the basic public services.

Getting anything done in this country requires an administrative fee and a bribe, it has become as common as the taxes. It is just an extra fee that does not appear anywhere on your balance sheets.

While I admire the protestors in Delhi and all that they stand up against, I fear they have aimed too low.

The amount of pain and suffering that they are going through is not enough for the result that they hope to achieve. They need support and help, and must demand more from the government.

Demanding more will only increase the number of people who would like to join the cause, but also, they can expect to have some of their demands met. You cannot go into negotiations with a single demand, that would change very little. The minister whose resignation they seek, is not the mastermind behind the whole operation.

More needs to be demanded.

See you tomorrow.