A few thoughts on the Cockroach Janata Party's protest come to mind.

The hunger strike by activists, including Sonam Wangchuk, had one demand: the minister of education should resign. Why? Because the minister failed at one of the most important tasks assigned to him: conducting the NEET examination without corruption. Readers may recall that in 2024, the paper leaked while the same minister was in charge, yet he remained in office.

This year, the government was compelled to admit there had been corruption in the process and cancelled the examination, inconveniencing 20 lakh students. Add their families and we are talking about nearly 1 crore Indians directly affected — all subjected to high levels of stress, anxiety and the insecurity that constantly plagues Indians.

At least 12 young girls and boys died by suicide in the 37 days between the cancelled examination and the retest. These are only the cases we know of. The government effectively conceded that the education ministry could not be trusted with the examination papers and entrusted their transportation to the Indian Air Force. We can interpret this either as a publicity stunt or as an acknowledgement of a genuine threat of paper leaks. Under neither interpretation does the government emerge looking good.

Having accepted that his education minister had failed to prevent corruption in NEET, the........

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