It is a telling irony that, as Parliament began this week, the Prime Minister embraced the “limitless capabilities and aspirations of Indian youth” even as his security forces were pummelling tens of thousands of young people in the heart of the capital, Delhi, for peacefully demanding his government do precisely that.

Modi’s sentiments were clearly at odds with the brutality with which the Delhi Police and paratroopers, wearing multi-coloured camouflage gear but no name tags, lashed out with batons and fired tear gas at the peaceful students’ protest march from Jantar Mantar to Parliament House.

Their only fault was to ask for the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as a first step towards accountability over the recent scandal involving leaked medical examination papers and faulty school-leaving marksheets. This vast chasm between the inflated flaunts by the current regime and ground realities may well prove to be its undoing.

Growing Student Discontent

While it is far too early to predict where the vast, popular upsurge of mostly young students worried about their education and job prospects will ultimately go, it does have a clear portent for the central government.

Clearly, there is growing disgruntlement among students, both in high school and in medical and engineering educational institutes, about falling teaching standards, leaked examination question papers and flawed marking, among a host of other issues, underlining a rapidly deteriorating system over the past several decades and successive governments.

Most importantly, the education on offer in India today in an overwhelming majority of schools, colleges and technical institutes no longer........

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