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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.

The Architect of BJP’s Bengal Revolution

From student activism and the Nandigram movement to defeating Mamata Banerjee twice, Suvendu Adhikari emerged as the strategist and mass leader

New Delhi: If there is one leader in West Bengal politics who has successfully combined the intensity of grassroots movements, the strength of organizational politics, and the strategy of regime change, it is Suvendu Adhikari. From student activism to emerging as the face of the Nandigram movement, and eventually becoming leader of the BJP’s legislative party and next chief minister of West Bengal, his journey represents one of the rare political trajectories in India where leadership forged on the ground ultimately rises to the pinnacle of power.


At the heart of the BJP’s historic success in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections stands Suvendu Adhikari. Political observers believe that his role was pivotal in Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s strategy that transformed the BJP from a marginal force with just three seats into a party crossing the 200-seat mark. Whether it was defeating Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur or reclaiming the political legacy of Nandigram for the BJP, Adhikari fundamentally altered the equations of Bengal politics.


Political Journey

Born on December 15, 1970, in Kanthi (Contai) in the East Midnapore district, Suvendu Adhikari comes from a family deeply rooted in politics. His father, Sisir Adhikari, was a towering figure in Bengal’s political landscape for decades. The Adhikari family has long enjoyed considerable influence across coastal Bengal, particularly in East Midnapore. For Suvendu, politics was never merely a profession, but it was part of his upbringing and political inheritance.


He formally entered public life in 1989 through the Chhatra Parishad, the student wing of the Congress party. At a time when Left-backed student organisations dominated campuses across Bengal, Adhikari learned the realities of both political struggle and organisational mobilisation as an opposition student leader. In 1995, he entered electoral politics as a councillor in the Kanthi municipality.


The turning point came in 1998, when Mamata Banerjee founded the Trinamool Congress and the Adhikari family aligned itself with her new political movement. From that moment, Suvendu’s stature within Bengal politics began to rise steadily. Yet, his real emergence came during the 2007 Nandigram movement.


Nandigram Movement

As protests erupted against the Left Front government’s land acquisition drive, Adhikari formed the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC). While Mamata Banerjee became the political voice of the agitation in Kolkata and Delhi, it was Suvendu who emerged as the movement’s principal organizer on the ground in Nandigram’s villages and streets. He travelled from village to village mobilizing farmers, stood against police crackdowns ruling party cadres, and remained at the forefront even after the police firing of March 14, 2007.


Political analysts widely believe that the Nandigram movement laid the foundation for the collapse of the 34-year-old Left Front regime and paved the way for Mamata Banerjee’s rise to power in 2011. Suvendu Adhikari was among the key strategists behind that historic political shift.


BJP Era

But political alliances are rarely permanent. The growing influence of Abhishek Banerjee within the Trinamool Congress and Adhikari’s sense of being sidelined gradually widened the distance between him and Mamata Banerjee. In December 2020, he joined the BJP, that move proved to be far more than a routine political defection. It fundamentally shifted the balance of power in West Bengal politics.


The 2021 Assembly election turned into a defining political battle when Mamata Banerjee left her safe Bhabanipur seat to contest against Adhikari in Nandigram. The election became more than a contest between two leaders; it was seen as a struggle for Bengal’s political future. Adhikari defeated Mamata Banerjee by nearly 2,000 votes and earned the reputation of a “giant killer.”


He subsequently became the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly and emerged as the BJP’s undisputed face in the state. In the 2026 elections, he aggressively raised issues such as Sandeshkhali, the RG Kar hospital controversy, corruption, and law and order. His extensive statewide tours and booth-level electoral strategy gave the BJP an unprecedented edge.


His latest victory over Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur by more than 15,000 votes is already being described as one of the most remarkable episodes in contemporary Indian politics. Defeating a sitting Chief Minister twice, from two different constituencies, is widely regarded as almost unprecedented.


Personal Life

Suvendu Adhikari remains unmarried and often describes himself as fully devoted to public life. Several criminal cases have been filed against him, most of them after political protests and his switch to the BJP. He has consistently described these cases as politically motivated acts of vendetta.


Today, as the BJP stands at the threshold of power in West Bengal for the first time, the hero of Nandigram appears poised to lead the state itself.

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