So Long June - Special Issue
Prominent highlights of the month around me.
Last night, the India cricket team won their third World Cup title. The team remained undefeated throughout the tournament in the whole month of June. It is a big deal for most people in India just like it was for Argentina when they lifted the Football World Cup last year. The popularity of the sport also benefited massively from this win. Especially in the US, where most matches were played, cricket took a big leap last year with the launch of Major League Cricket. Not surprisingly, except for the moniker, everything else was Indian-American — the organizers, the sponsors, the fans, and even the teams(and their affiliations).
Naturally, it was a big festival for cricket fans across the globe, but in India, it was a national holiday. The big victory after thirteen years will be the subject of conversation on the internet, TV, and media for weeks to come, on an international scale. However, it will engulf the massive student protests in India that occupied headlines in June.
Trigger warning: Controversial news topic ahead
Student protests are fairly common in India, to the point that invoking a protest is often deliberate by institutions or individuals, most of the time to check the tolerance capacity. Issues like climate change, gender equity, and wars hardly make the cut for consideration. The cases of racial discrimination are far too frequent to be covered in prominent protests, but they do accumulate every once in a while.
No protests are orderly in India. The chaotic ones by students are often for disgustingly basic rights. Hence, international coverage tends to look past such. Some are hard to comprehend and uncomfortable to witness. These days, student protests are viewed for political gains, ignored as a stunt, leaving the victims hanging. Everything looks like yet another trend destined to die down.
The recent protests are driven by a security breach in the entrance exam for medical studies after high school. This exam is compulsory for all if they want to become medical professionals. There is no way around it. Once you get into a college, you start getting opportunities to exit the government-sanctioned education and get an education for learning. For that sole purpose, millions of students study every year to be able to clear the entrance exam. That’s why you encounter Indian doctors in all countries. There is a reason why 1 in 4 foreign students in the US is from India.
Education can easily qualify as the worst facet of India, even below poverty, discrimination, and religion. Via education, others can be beaten. But not the other way around.
Most exams in India have dicey security. Exams from varied difficulty levels are compromised every year. Elite-level technical and medical exams exist at the opposite end of the spectrum. As someone who has cleared the former more than once, during one of the most stringent terms, I can personally confirm multiple encounters with affluent students who paid handsomely a day or two before the big day. Big scorers land in the premier league colleges. Mixers and touchdown events work best to let loose and drop the burden. Once the results are out and everything is done and dusted, they do open up. They know how it works, how it has been for god knows how long, but don’t give a f…
However, every once in a while, the threshold crosses the tolerance level, and a few people drop dead. Normally, it is no big deal. Business as usual/part of the education. You lose some, you gain some(thing). But this time, the wannabe doctors realized that it was too much. The medical profession in India is already at its lowest, with doctors swaying away from the central dogma i.e. saving lives, to save yourself. College is where the mutation (most likely) happens, where reality hits, and they learn the cure—a viral medical handle on YouTube.
The current student protests may shape how health and medicine would be in (and out of) India. To learn more, check out this Wikipedia page. I think it has a curated list of articles, news sources, and references. It is better than watching some random videos.