NANANANA BATMAN

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

I need people to realise just how big of a deal this exam is to students around India. It is basically the only ticket to good education for many people if they want to pursue medicine. Even if you get certified in a different country, you can't legally practice medicine in India without writing the neet exam (correct me if I'm wrong). So many students have commited suicide over the results of this exam over the years. At the risk of sounding insensitive, the suicides after this exams are our equivalent to school shootings in America. Its become normal, its expected at this point.

Not only this, but they rolled out an entirely new way to grade the papers days before the exam and didn't train any teachers on how to actually use it, so a lot of the examinees got way less than they were initially supposed to. It's all a huge mess.

In a country where even the upper middle class people struggle to put their kids through school because the education system is a scam, the livelihoods of entire families have been ruined by this year's bullshit. The health and wellbeing of countless young people have been ruined, permanently damaged by the stress they put themselves through to hopefully pass. I was hospitalized when I was studying for the neet exam once because my blood pressure had dropped so low. I've fainted in school, I've seen my friends faint from days of no sleep. I still struggle with fatigue, insomnia and severe nutrient deficiencies from skipped meals. And this was for an exam I didn't even want to clear.

My life was not destroyed because I had a different goal, I only wrote the exam because it was expected of me, but the students who are now being treated like punching bags by the education system, they are suffering. 2.2 MILLION PEOPLE HAVE BEEN AFFECTED AND YET NO ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN. This happened in May, it is now July!

This is not the only issue with what's happening right now. Our prime minister is a joke. Our central government is a joke. Our education minister gets to do whatever he pleases while the people he was supposed to serve suffer under him. Sonam Wangchuk is a saint for what he is doing, and as of now he has been forcefully removed from Jantar Mantar and hospitalized. Protesters in Delhi are being violently beaten on the streets and detained for seeking justice.

So please, I implore you all: Indians, do your part! Join a protest if you can. Spread the word. There are online petitions that can be filled. Don't let the voices of your young be drowned out by a corrupt government. Be loud!

Non Indians, please spread the word. This is a tragic development in our country and yet no news outlets are talking about it. If it becomes recognised internationally then the government will be forced to answer. The only people the PM will answer to is other countries. The ruling party has its hands in every pie. Please, don't let them drown us out. For your brothers and sister in India, please.

this is by far one of my more strange requests… I took some creative liberties with this one since it was a little confusing

5 years later:

ref

a satisfactory answer for Selina