Listen to this article:

After 25 years in the saddle, first as chief minister of Gujarat and then prime minister of India, Narendra Modi may find it difficult to believe that his days at the pinnacle of power are now numbered. But barring another Pulwama, or some other ‘miracle’, there is relatively little chance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coming back to power in 2029.

This is in spite of every stratagem that his propaganda machine will be able to think of – to curb the freedom of the press, break up opposition parties, terrorise officialdom and disenfranchise still more voters beyond the 10% that the Election Commission has already got rid of (in Bihar) – in the three years that remain before the next Lok Sabha election. 

The reason to believe this is that discontent with his government has been rising steadily. Modi’s unparalleled propaganda machine has consistently portrayed him as a father of the nation, interested only in the welfare of his people. But that image had begun to develop serious cracks even before the seven-week-long Jantar Mantar student protest against the leakage of yet another set of papers in this year’s NEET examination and the Delhi Police’s brutal crackdown on students demanding accountability on July 20 this year.

The students’ ire was understandable. Close to two million students had sat for the NEET exam, pinning their hopes of securing one of the 137,000 places in India’s 823 medical colleges, and 80,000 places in veterinary and ayurvedic centres of learning on the basis of this all-important examination. Then, after they had finished sitting for it, they discovered that the question paper had been leaked and that they would have to sit for the examination all over again.

The exam paper’s leak was discovered soon after it was over, and confirmed by a succession of complaints from other schools and coaching institutions in the days that followed. After extensive inquiries carried out over the next five days, the government set June 21 as the date for a fresh examination. As many as 12 students could not take the stress and committed suicide. 

This year’s NEET exam paper leak was not an isolated event. On the contrary, as the desperation of educated youth to find jobs has increased, the ‘price’ of such leaks has risen steadily higher, and the leaks more frequent, till selling examination papers in advance has become a highly........

© The Wire