Does Merit Matter To Us?

 

Does Merit Matter To Us? How many qualify amorally, creating a victim who lost to your dishonesty for each such case? For every person who qualifies through dishonest means, someone else pays the price — a victim of a system that let them get away with it. At the start of this article, let me be clear: I am 53+, and not dissatisfied with how my life turned out. I am perfectly happy - if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a single professional decision I made. But the recent events surrounding the NEET exam protests have forced me to look back at the past years, towards rumours, reports and claims  of paper leaks, job scams,  and gaming attempts. From Vyapam in MP to the repeated compromises of a multitude of entrance exams, we may be looking at a system in crisis.

It is disgusting and frustrating even to me, a person who is not affected; not anymore. And yet I feel the shock of what happened – how must it be for those who are actually impacted, whether as students or as parents? It is befuddling to me, a person who never cheated, who never tried amoral methods, to fathom this: and yet, people do it. Disgusting. No other word comes to me. If success comes so easy, why should we work hard at it? Isnt that the lesson we are giving? This is perhaps the biggest issue that is confronting us today, in this day and age. For these things build the future, and the coming generations. This is not something to forget – remember, even I – someone who doesn’t write politics anymore – is penning this here.

 

My Past

Like many of you, I gave these exams years ago. I was selected in one, missed being selected in another. A third I couldn't attempt fully because the education was simply too costly [walked out  mid way giving only 50% answers], and I refused to burden my parents – and the fourth I just skipped – no way I could ask my family to fund that huge amount. No point even trying – so did not even make the attempt. And am proud of all decisions I made. PS – and my Dad was an MD Doctor, an Army Colonel no less. Still the cost was hitting me hard – I wonder about those students who made those calls and went. I didn’t – and am damned proud of that call. Told no one – and now Mom-Dad are with God, so they wont know.

 

A Hard Look

Watching the current crisis unfold, I find myself deeply worried for us as a nation, driven to three distinct realizations:

1. The Uncounted Cohort: Where Are the Cheaters Now? How many people in India today qualified through these exams via unhealthy means? What is their career trajectory? We know that scams like Vyapam date back to the 1990s. That means people who bought their exam papers decades ago are now in jobs all around us. We are operating alongside a cohort whose foundational entry into the system was rooted in theft. What happens to a nation when its critical institutions are run by such people?

2. The Destroyed Lives of the Honest For every seat bought by a cheater, a seat is stolen from someone eligible. Has anyone wondered what happens to those destroyed lives? We are seeing the answer now. It contributes to the despair that has already driven far too many young aspirants into hopelessness. It is measured in the debt of parents who take out loans, or money from savings. to fund coaching, only to have the system betray them. It shatters the belief that hard work matters, robbing millions of their only ladder out of poverty. It eats into the ability to dream – which is the core of development, the fundamental catalyst. When will we, as a people, learn this?

3. The Desperation of "We the People" The fault is as much ours as it is the system's. We – at least some of us -  are so desperate for success that we forget we have a fundamental obligation to behave the right way. We dismiss it as "Kalyug"—accepting moral decay as inevitable. Yet, if we the people did not expect this, if you didn't expect a desperate population to eventually compromise the system, you (we) haven't been paying attention. So, we need a system that guards against these tendencies, watches over them. But where are these guardrails? Where are the protections? (Surely some protections, forward thinking, can be built into the system, to protect the system and ensure its sanctity)

 

A Societal Cancer

I comment on business, marketing – and, at times, poetry. My Instagram has nothing except my poems and my Upanishad Series slides. Yet, even I am drawn to penning on this. That doesn’t make me a CJP supporter - in fact, I don't trust this sudden rise, and co-opting this anger overnight- with millions of sudden followers doesn't inspire my confidence. But stripped of the politics, this – the exam scam - is a societal cancer.

I look back at the exams where I wasn't selected, and today, even I can't help but wonder: were my marks real, or were they manufactured by a broken system? To be clear – they probably were: I gave those exams and know what I wrote. And I am happy with where I am. And yet, here we are. So for the millions of youth standing where I stood decades ago, this theft of merit is a tragedy we cannot afford to ignore.

 

Conclusion

I have lots of questions, a storehouse of disgust, and no answers. It is taking all my practice on meditation, Advait vedant to control my response, and accept what has happened as Kalyug, and that I have to navigate through it somehow. But what I can do is ask these questions, in the hope that I may instil the same questions in people who read this. This is not meant as a comment on either the demonstrations, or the Government – this is just the heartfelt lament of an Indian on the other side of 50. This is just a simple set of thoughts that course through my mind as I silently watch this episode unfold in front of my eyes.