Tens of thousands of students and youth participated in a national strike in India on July 4 against the Narendra Modi-led government’s education policies and to demand the end of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and centralized exams that it conducts. The student mobilizations are the first major national protest movement organized by left opposition groups since Modi began his third term as prime minister in early June.
The protesters demanded that the controversial National Eligibility cum Entrance Exam (NEET) be voided and that Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan resign for betraying the trust of millions of students and allowing mismanagement in the conduct of NEET and other exams for admission in higher and professional studies courses.
Read more: Indian students and youth protest corruption in entrance exams
The students’ national strike was called for by the left-wing Student Federation of India (SFI), All India Student Federation (AISF), and other student and youth formations. These groups have been agitating against the NTA and NEET for weeks now after large scale discrepancies were reported following the publication of this years’ NEET results in early June.
On Thursday, students in India’s various states organized sit-ins in front of their respective universities and marched to the governor’s offices including in West Bengal, Delhi, Kerala, Himachal, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, and several other states. Students carried banners, posters and placards with their demands for the scrapping of NTA, NEET, and resignation of Pradhan. They claimed that centralization of education is carried by the BJP-led government at the center in order to privatize the sector and make it exclusive for the rich and affluent classes.
As the institutions of public education are crumbled, students of India under the leadership of SFI observe a strike across the country.#TrashNTA #EducationMinisterMustResign #neet_scam #UGCnet #CSIRnet pic.twitter.com/BloGLyj1yK
— Mayukh Biswas (@MayukhDuke) July 5, 2024
Student groups and opposition political parties in India including the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have questioned the motive behind centralization of exams for university admissions claiming it is done in order to introduce large scale privatization and commercialization in the education sector. Such a move ultimately hurts the interests of youth coming from poor and marginalized sections of the society and compromises the rights to equal opportunity.
“NEET favors the affluent and disadvantages marginalized students, leading to suicides and social exclusion. Coaching centers exploit this, reinforcing the belief that only the wealthy can afford medical education, worsening inequality under the guise of uniformity.” said Mayukh Biswas, General Secretary of SFI in a post on X.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) led by an alliance of left-wing student organizations had organized a sit-in near India’s parliament against NTA and NEET for a week. Security forces attacked some of the students last week and detained them in an attempt to end the sit-in.
Across the country, student protests, sit-ins, rallies, and marches have been met with violent repression by security forces. The Modi government has also refused to listen to the students’ demands.
Every year millions of students write exams conducted by the NTA since its formation in 2017. However, the multiple instances of mismanagement and corruption in these exams has left hundreds of thousands of students, mostly from poor, marginalized and working class families feeling dejected and hopeless.
State governments have complained about the Modi government trying to interfere in their domain unconstitutionally and centralize education to implement its pro-corporate agenda and deepen divisions in society based on religion and caste.
