For decades there has been a covenant between India and its young—pass these entrance exams, and you are set. You can then escape India, physically and even within India.
It was the privatization of hope. In return, the young wasted their youth in the gloom of preparing for life, to make it to some humid town where there would be an ‘institution of excellence.’
So, when news exploded that Indian corruption also extended to a major entrance exam, whose question papers were leaked and sold, and that the government messed up exams in other ways, a vast swathe of young people and their parents were disgusted enough to hit the streets, swayed by the cunning provocations of the Cockroach Janta Party.
The agitation has since become broader and captured the prevailing anxiety over the economy and lack of employment. But this is not why the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), despite its salvage efforts, may be in its most serious spot of trouble after Narendra Modi took charge as Prime Minister in 2014.
At first glance, it may appear so. But I feel something more fascinating is going on, something new, and it cannot be fixed by this government.
The real problem is this. Higher education has hinged on a lie. That it can result in a good job. For decades there seemed to be a correlation between higher education and lucrative jobs. But, in reality, it was always inequality that helped people secure such jobs.
As more and more people could afford education, and were well-fed enough to crack entrance exams, employers just couldn’t absorb so many. Higher education was an artificial filter designed to reject millions of people.
Education is many wonderful things. I am sure there are people who study engineering to enjoy the poetic beauty of mechanics, medicine to marvel at the human form and statistics to unearth truth, but mostly people get educated to get a job. It is useless though, if education is not an elite club. Without inequality, education is merely about learning.
The sacred utility of higher education is such an entrenched belief that the government has increased the number of elite engineering and management courses, perhaps thinking, oddly, that if there are many engineers, there would be more jobs.
Yet, millions of graduates are both unemployed and unemployable. Because ‘expertise’ was always a byproduct of an unequal society. Even technical jobs require elements of social class, like appearance and confident articulation.
So hundreds of thousands of students, the poor especially, whose parents borrowed money to send them to college, have no special prospects.
Thus the contract between India and its young cannot be sustained. There is nothing even a competent government, let alone this one, can do about it. That is why the trouble the BJP might now be in is unprecedented.
Even if India shifts from organized intellectuality to vocational training, there are just too many of us. The effect of inequality is visible even in modest jobs. Looks like the world was built on a model that is not ready for our sweetest wish—an equal society.
The old arrangement was that a lucky few would get prestigious degrees in prestigious-sounding courses, giving them the appearance of qualification. The elite would then move on to better things, and the next rung would take their place.
But the force of social progress, along with powerful publicity of the lie that higher education will save everyone, has ensured that too many are now ‘qualified.’
We are watching the full chaos of social progress, compounded by AI. India is so vast that even the top 10% who have ‘made it’ are a huge number, and their disenchantment is a powerful political force.
The Centre responded to youth protests the way it usually does—through brutal force and intimidation. But that backfired. Anyone who had a child felt their heart twist every time they saw cops hit the young.
As the protest swelled and acquired the appearance of a party, it got harder to tell what the protestors wanted, but a vocal section wanted the downfall of this administration.
For the first time, the BJP has been cast as a party that is out of touch with the young, as a fellowship of the old harming the young. And for the first time in over a decade, it may even be looking beatable in national polls.
The last time the BJP faced such negative branding was in the 1990s, when it was deemed ‘communal,’ which was a bad word in India then and most people were under pressure to claim they were ‘secular,’ which was mostly nonsense but we were still innocent. Now, the party might be acquiring a reputation for being an enemy of the young.
Indians have a low bar for many things. Our protests for clean air and liveable cities did not rattle politicians. But Indians are hysterically serious about their children.
The present is just a temporary holding place for them to shine in a place called the ‘future.’ Any threat to the future is grave.
They can bring up their children in filthy air, let them dangle from unsafe trains and travel on dangerous roads, but they will not tolerate that terrifying thing called an uncertain future. Of such a future, the BJP may now be a mascot.
Just how bad this is for the BJP can be measured in the new courage of Indian celebrities, who have been fearful of saying anything critical against the government. Now they have found their voice.
All this has come at a time when Donald Trump has made it very risky for Indians to escape to America. As a result, the present young are the first generation in modern India that has no choice but to make home a better place. There are no escape hatches.