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By:

Rajendra Joshi

3 December 2024 at 9:20:26 am

The Warning Beyond NEET

The Jantar Mantar protests exposed the widening gap between education, employment and growth. The month-long protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar may have formally ended, but the political and economic questions it raised will linger. Triggered by the NEET paper leak, the movement became a major expression of youth discontent. What began as a demand for a fair examination system became a broader indictment of an economic model that promises opportunity but increasingly fails to deliver...

The Warning Beyond NEET

The Jantar Mantar protests exposed the widening gap between education, employment and growth. The month-long protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar may have formally ended, but the political and economic questions it raised will linger. Triggered by the NEET paper leak, the movement became a major expression of youth discontent. What began as a demand for a fair examination system became a broader indictment of an economic model that promises opportunity but increasingly fails to deliver employment. The government initially treated the protests as a law-and-order issue. That changed when the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the ruling establishment, publicly criticised police action and expressed solidarity with the students. The subsequent resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, withdrawal of criminal cases and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's endorsement of the integrity and aspirations of India's Gen Z transformed the political narrative. The issue had moved beyond examination reform to whether India's development model is serving its young citizens. The NEET paper leak was merely the spark. The fuel had accumulated through rising educated unemployment, declining confidence in public institutions and growing frustration among millions of young Indians. Education is increasingly seen as an uncertain investment rather than a guaranteed pathway to opportunity. Every examination scandal reinforces the perception that merit alone is insufficient, while recruitment delays deepen the belief that the system is failing those who have done everything expected of them. India has celebrated its demographic dividend for nearly two decades, projecting its young workforce as its greatest competitive advantage. But demographic dividends are never automatic. They generate prosperity only when education is matched by employment, productivity and rising incomes. Otherwise, they become demographic liabilities that breed frustration rather than growth. The evidence suggests India is approaching that inflection point. GDP has expanded impressively over the past two decades, yet employment has failed to keep pace. Employment elasticity has weakened sharply. During the 1980s, every percentage point of GDP growth generated roughly half a percentage point increase in employment. Today the ratio is estimated at about 0.16, among the lowest for major emerging economies. Growth continues; jobs do not. This disconnect reflects India's growth strategy. Public policy has increasingly favoured capital-intensive industries through subsidies, tax incentives and investment support. Such sectors contribute to output and productivity but generate relatively fewer jobs. Agriculture continues to suffer from incomplete reforms and low productivity. Manufacturing has not expanded fast enough to absorb new workers, while artificial intelligence and automation are reducing opportunities in occupations once regarded as gateways to middle-class prosperity. India thus faces a paradox: it is producing more graduates while creating fewer opportunities to absorb them. The comparison with Asia is instructive. Vietnam and Bangladesh have pursued manufacturing-led growth that has generated substantially higher employment relative to economic expansion. Vietnam's employment-to-population ratio is estimated at nearly three-fourths, compared with about one-half in India. Vietnam has also moved into the upper-middle-income category, while India remains a lower-middle-income economy. These comparisons do not diminish India's achievements. They highlight the urgency of correcting structural weaknesses before they become politically destabilising. History demonstrates the risks of prolonged youth unemployment. The Arab Spring showed how educated but unemployed youth can transform political landscapes. More recently, political instability in Bangladesh and Nepal has reflected frustration among younger populations facing shrinking opportunities. India's democratic institutions are stronger, and its circumstances are different. Yet no democracy can indefinitely ignore the aspirations of its largest demographic group. The significance of Jantar Mantar lies here. India's Gen Z is organised, digitally connected and politically conscious. Social media transformed local grievances into a national movement within days, while traditional political parties largely responded after the sentiment had acquired independent momentum. The RSS intervention further complicated the government's challenge. Once protesting students found resonance within the ideological ecosystem closest to the ruling establishment, the issue ceased to be a partisan confrontation. It became an internal warning that India's youth expect credible institutions, transparent examinations and, above all, meaningful employment. The Centre's examination reforms are necessary but insufficient. Restoring the credibility of competitive examinations addresses only one symptom. The larger challenge is to redesign India's growth strategy around employment. Labour-intensive manufacturing, support for small and medium enterprises, investment in skills, higher-education reform and greater attention to employment outcomes must become central to economic planning. The Jantar Mantar agitation should not be remembered simply as the NEET protests. It marked a moment when India's youngest generation questioned the assumptions underlying the country's development model. Governments can manage protests and reform examinations. But unless economic growth translates into broad-based employment, similar movements will return. India's demographic dividend remains its greatest opportunity. It could equally become its greatest challenge. The warning has been delivered. The question is whether policymakers are prepared to listen.

Radical Prescription

When Dr. Jay Bhattacharya stepped into the political maelstrom of the COVID-19 pandemic, he wasn’t just another epidemiologist offering cautious public health guidance. He became a lightning rod, an academic insurgent who challenged the prevailing orthodoxy of lockdowns and mass quarantines, earning both ardent followers and vocal detractors. Now, as the newly minted director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under President Donald Trump, Bhattacharya finds himself in yet another storm, this time at the helm of America’s most powerful medical research institution, grappling with funding freezes and a divided scientific community.


Born in Kolkata in 1968, Bhattacharya’s journey to prominence reads like an improbable blend of medical expertise, economic insight and ideological provocation. His family immigrated to the United States when he was young, and by the time he reached Stanford University, he had set himself on an unorthodox path that straddled the realms of medicine and economics. He earned a medical degree and a Ph.D. in economics, an unusual dual credential that shaped his approach to public health as both a physician and a policy thinker.


His rise through Stanford’s ranks was meteoric. A professor of health policy and a senior fellow at multiple Stanford institutions, Bhattacharya built a career studying the economics of healthcare, aging, and the well-being of vulnerable populations. But it was the pandemic that catapulted him into the limelight and into controversy.


In October 2020, he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, an incendiary document that advocated against blanket lockdowns, arguing instead for “focused protection” of the elderly and vulnerable while allowing COVID-19 to spread among healthier populations to build natural immunity. At the time, when government after government was implementing harsh restrictions, his stance was nothing short of heretical. The NIH’s then-director, Francis Collins, and White House advisor Anthony Fauci publicly denounced the declaration as “dangerous” and “unethical.”


For Bhattacharya, however, the lockdowns were an even greater moral failing. He believed they disproportionately harmed the working class, deepened inequality, and had devastating consequences for children kept out of school. He framed his arguments not just as a scientific disagreement but as a question of social justice - a rhetorical shift that made him a hero to libertarians and skeptics of government overreach.


His recent nomination as NIH director, confirmed by a narrow 53-47 Senate vote, signals Trump’s broader agenda to shake up the scientific establishment. At his confirmation hearing, Bhattacharya promised to restore “trust in public science institutions” and cultivate “a culture of respect for free speech in science.” His supporters see him as a necessary reformer, someone who will push back against groupthink and politicization within the NIH. His critics fear his iconoclastic tendencies could undermine public health messaging and deepen the distrust sown during the pandemic years.


Yet Bhattacharya, for all his defiance, is no mere political provocateur. His scholarship is vast and deeply respected, with over 135 peer-reviewed articles spanning medicine, law, and public health. His research into physician payment models and healthcare spending has shaped policy discussions for years. But his new role demands more than academic rigor—it requires navigating the complex, often brutal world of Washington politics, where funding battles and ideological clashes define the future of medical research.


Will Bhattacharya’s tenure mark the beginning of a bold new chapter for the NIH, or will his maverick instincts spark further turmoil in an already fractured landscape? As he takes the reins of America’s premier medical research institution, one thing is clear: the debate over public health is far from over, and Jay Bhattacharya remains at its center.

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