Between 1967 and 1975, West Bengal witnessed the worst type of political violence, which did not spare the campuses as well. In Assam, students launched a movement against infiltrators and outsiders between 1979 and 1985.
Yet, it is Bihar which has earned notoriety for the complete breakdown of the educational machinery. Be it mass copying, impersonation of candidates in competitive examinations, question paper leak, marksheet scam and finally, inordinate delay in the academic session where three years graduation
course is completed in five years–none can match this eastern state which otherwise boasts of the enlightenment of Gautam Buddha and Mahavira.
It is not that Bihar had not seen students’ unrest. In 1967 there was political instability and along with Gujarat, it shot into limelight during the 1974 Lok Nayak Jaya Prakash Narayan-led students’ movement. The incumbent chief minister Nitish Kumar, former CM Lalu Prasad Yadav, late BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, former Union ministers Ashwini Choubey and Ravi Shankar Prasad are some of the prominent names associated with it.
Notwithstanding the periodic instability, the fact remains that the level of political violence in Bihar during those street-fighting years were much lower than West Bengal where thousands of people lost their lives during the heydays of Naxalite uprising and its brutal suppression, which in 1971 incidentally coincided with the liberation war of Bangladesh across its border.
In neighbouring Assam, where 860, many of them students, perished during the six years of movement academic calendar was not so much disturbed as in Bihar. (The death toll does not include over 2,000 Bengali Muslims massacred in Nellie on February 18, 1983).
If both these states recovered from that situation and managed to save the collapse of the education machinery why not Bihar? In West Bengal one may witness alleged teachers’
recruitment scam, corruption in government schemes as well as political violence, but
there is hardly any report of non-stop phenomenon of question paper leak, mass copying
and delay in academic session.
All these ‘qualities’ are associated with Bihar (Jharkhand was its part till 2000) and their origin can be traced in the same period of 1960s and 1970s. States such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra–incidentally all are BJP and NDA-ruled states–are catching up fast. Their names figure prominently in the latest NEET scam too.
Nalanda Spreading Darkness
On June 19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with chief minister Nitish Kumar, inaugurated the new building of the Nalanda University. Ironically, around the same time, the Nalanda district–named after the ancient learning site of the same name–was hitting the headline for the NEET question paper leak racket.
Be it Ranjit Don, the mastermind of paper leak scam of yesteryears or Sanjeev Mukhiya, said to be the kingpin of the latest scandal, both come from Nalanda, the home district of Nitish Kumar. Sanjeev is still at large and according to media reports has fled to Nepal. This confirms his influenctial political and administrative connections. Despite the question paper leak resulting in massive protests, both Modi and Nitish chose to sing the past glory and had nothing to say on the
present chaos.
Curiously, the same Bihar did not see any paper leak when over four lakh teachers were appointed during the 17 months period when the Grand Alliance government was in power with Tejashwi Prasad Yadav as the deputy chief minister while the education portfolio was in the hand of RJD’s Chandrashekar Yadav.
But within two months of the return to power of NDA the Bihar Public Service Commission had to cancel the third phase of teachers’ recruitment exam held on March 15 due to question paper leak. Over 3.75 lakh candidates appeared in the exam.
Similarly, the BPSC had to cancel the 67th Combined Preliminary Test for Civil Service held on May 8, 2022, once again when Nitish Kumar was leading an NDA government with two BJP leaders as deputy chief ministers.
However, the Grand Alliance government had to cancel the constable recruitment exam held
on October 1, 2023 following complaint of largescale unfair means adopted by candidates in several centres. The subsequent exams on October 7 and 15 were also postponed following reported leak of papers.
It is very easy for the present government to put all the blames for the rot in education
system to the previous regimes, starting from 1967. But it doesn’t answer the question that why, despite being in power since 19 years Nitish Kumar, has failed to change the scenario. At present, Kumar is not commenting on the issue.
Rise of the post-Mandal education mafia
There is no denying the fact that in caste-ridden Bihar, till 1990, upper castes used to monopolise the entire education system. In several colleges of the state, almost all the faculty members belonged to one particular upper caste or the other. All those involved in massive exam irregularities hail from these influential castes.
When Lalu Prasad Yadav became the Chief Minister on March 10, 1990, he promised something big. But the implementation of the Mandal Commission report in August the same year by then PM V P Singh changed the entire scenario. There were minor-mutinies everywhere in the society which was polarised on the caste line and subsequently on communal line as the Babri Masjid- Ram Janambhoomi movement reached its peak.
Also Read: How the Exam Mafia Exploit Poor and Talented Students to Achieve Their Goal
The rich upper-class elite chose to send their children to educational institutes outside Bihar while the poor and weaker section of the society was left to spoil their career in the state.
It was an opportune time for the emergence of backward caste educational mafia. Ranjit Don was the pioneer in this field. Now there are countless more, once again most of them from the same Nalanda district.
Failure of ‘Sushashan Babu’ to prevent deteriorating standard of education
After Nitish Kumar came to power on November 24, 2005, things turned from bad to worse. While the new government built school and college buildings, distributed cycles and uniforms to students, it completely destroyed the entire educational system. Thousands of teachers who cannot even spell January, February etc in Hindi were appointed on contract. The college and university teaching and exams were completely paralysed by one experiment or the other. Students were given inflated marks in Bihar Board exams to show to the world that the academic standard had improved in the state.
The media, which was busy hailing Nitish as Sushashan Babu (able administrator), totally ignored this sharp deterioration which emboldened the education mafia, that is now spreading its tentacles throughout the country.
