Dharmendra Pradhan’s exit affirms the young have been heard, larger listening needs to begin

As new beginnings are made, it becomes necessary to ring out the old. The resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, over a month after the start of students’ protests triggered by the NEET exam paper leak, is welcome. The minister has done the right thing by making way for someone who will now have to earn the trust of the students’ community. A community that, to its enormous credit, came together in a leaderless agitation and made itself heard. The twin issues of education and unemployment, which are crucial for a nation’s growth and shape its sense of the future, and yet which have been treated with a lack of urgency for years and decades, are now centerstage. It is the achievement of the satirical online platform, the Cockroach Janta Party, which gave the call, and the youth who responded in large numbers to the issues that were being raised, that a government whose instinct is to demonise and label the protester has sent a heartening message: It is listening. In days to come, this moment, and this listening, has to be taken forward. It will not be easy. To begin with, it will need an acknowledgement that there are no victors and vanquished — this is a rare and valuable moment precisely because it allows everyone to express their shared stakes in the issues that lie at its core. It must not be tarnished by point-scoring or retribution.

Large challenges of politics and policy lie ahead. The Prime Minister has promised the setting up of fast-track courts. A tougher law that provides those courts statutory backing, lays down strict timelines for investigations and trials, and increases punishments for those involved in paper leaks and irregularities, is set to be introduced in Parliament. A law already exists — the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. No lessons seem to have been learnt from the last NEET leak, also in 2024, or the recommendations of the high-powered committee constituted the same year under former ISRO chairperson K Radhakrishnan to review the structure of the NTA and secure the fairness of the public exam system. It will be the responsibility of the people’s representatives, therefore — those who sit on the treasury benches as well as those who sit in the Opposition — to ensure that they do not let down the students again, and that the gains made by the movement in the past days and weeks are not frittered away. This is an opportunity to bring long-pending changes not just in the way examinations are held, but in the education eco-system as a whole. Larger questions must be raised and debated in Parliament, which can rearrange the way learning and skilling and access to opportunities are structured in a country of the young. All institutions have a role to play — the Supreme Court has said that it will closely monitor the Centre’s overhaul of the NEET.

The SC will also hear petitions alleging police excesses against protesting students across the country. The question of disproportionate use of force by police on the young protesters must be addressed transparently and fairly. Most of all, this moment demands generosity and open-mindedness from the powerful — when the young speak, it cannot afford to turn a deaf ear or resort to an older playbook of criminalising dissent. It also demands humility and patience from the young — to be enduring, change will need to be mediated by processes and institutions.