Dear Friends,I write this letter to all my friends who turned up at Jantar Mantar on July 20, 2026. I think we deserve a big pat on our back for coming out in such large numbers. We woke up what they call the ‘mother of democracy’ from the slumber it had entered 12 years ago with our sheer numbers and unyielding determination.It is our fearlessness to ask questions which will ensure that representatives elected by us – from the village-mukhiya, ward member or zilla parishad member to the MLA, MP, prime minister or president – all of whom have been happily ruling, enjoying themselves while we toil underneath, would get up and listen. Let it be known to them, the time for andh-bhakti is over! Hum jaag gaye hain aur aapko gaur se dekh rahe hain. Aur aapko ye bhi bata den ki aapke lakshan theek nahin lag rahe hain (we have woken up and we are watching you carefully. And let us tell you that your intentions don’t appear to be nice).A group of protesters in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Photo: Special Arrangement.Since the last eight weeks, people like us, in different parts of the country and on social media have raised our voice against the NEET paper leak and the corruption that has spread like wildfire into our very education system. This is not the first time this paper has been leaked, but in fact it is a repeat episode that has been recurring annually for the last four years.Several students have committed suicide because of the deplorable situation, 22 of which happened this time in only a matter of a few days. I feel that the right way to put it is to say students are institutionally murdered by the corrupt National Testing Agency (NTA) through its paper leaks and examination business.Police try to evict protestors during a protest march near the parliament, outside RBI building in New Delhi on July 20, 2026. Photo: PTI/Gurinder Osan.This consecutive-yearly leaking of the paper shows that this is not just the work of a few corrupt individuals who are misusing the system, but instead, that the system is rigged to ensure the paper leaks every year. It is a system that is built on an impoverished understanding of education, not meant for emancipation or progression of society, but as business meant to make profits or a commodity that can be bought and sold on the market.This chingari (fire) of the NEET paper leak scam has brought us together, not only in the digital sphere but also in the public sphere. It has given us the strength and courage to come together in a beautiful collective solidarity to show the government that we reject this corrupt education system and everything that comes out of it. It is not just students of NEET exam, but those who might give the exam in the future, those who are facing issues in other exams and many more such who are here.Illustration: Pencil Ashan.To avail justice for the lives of those who committed suicide after the NEET paper leak, we will need to identify the individuals and institutions who were involved in this. We will need to understand the history and present of the NTA and see why NTA was setup in this country. We will need to then investigate what existed before the NTA and analyse why the government came up with NTA in the first place. Who benefits from this NTA system? There are questions and more questions which need urgent, immediate and elaborate answers.If we truly wish for the NEET paper to stop getting leaked, we must not forget that NEET is not the only paper that leaks and this is not the only issue that exists with our system. The government has consistently hollowed our education system over the last decade. It has undermined the Right to Education (RTE) Act by replacing it with the National Education Policy (NEP).Also read: Police Stop Autorickshaws From Reaching Jantar Mantar, Don’t Say WhyBy using terms like ‘holistic and tech-driven’ education, this policy has only introduced changes in the system that have taken the attention away from teaching to introducing a layer of corporate consultants in planning and education. Schools have been shut down and closed, teachers have not been hired, children and their parents have suffered from Aadhaar-linking school enrollments and APAAR IDs, to say the least. Fees have skyrocketed while actual government expenditure in education as a proportion of the GDP fallen by nearly 40% in real terms. We continue to fall short of the 6% GDP target setup by Kothari Commission in 1962.As we sit and untangle this ball of wool, we will realise that when we yank on any strand at random it only tightens the knot elsewhere. To untangle, we will need to find one loose end and pull it gently and slowly, watching where it goes. As we pull, it will not come out clean, instead it shall dip under a loop, double back through a coil, cross another strand that looked, a second ago, like an unrelated one.A protestor holds a poster that reads, “Kuch bhi likhlo inko kaunsa samjah ana hai (write anything, they [the government] won’t understand). Photo: Special Arrangement.We might have to loosen a knot that has nothing directly to do with our original thread, just to give us enough space to keep moving. And soon we will realise that what initially appeared like ten different tangled scraps were one continuous strand – they only appeared separate because of how tightly they were wound together.In other words, we must understand that if we truly want to stop the NEET paper leak, we will need to ask questions of the NTA and the education system within which it is placed. We will need to ask questions of the democratic system in our country and whether they create real conditions of equality and equity. We must ask questions to the government not only of things which we have faced ourselves, but also what they’ve done in our name with our fellow citizens – especially the weakest and most vulnerable ones.Police detain protesters demanding Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, near Chaityabhoomi in Mumbai on July 20, 2026. Photo: PTI.This requires us to think about the way in which Kashmiris have been made terrorists in our imagination. The way in which the people from the North-East are always looked at as the Other. We shall have to grapple with why the government vilified Muslims on their own land and made them into a national enemy. This requires us to ask why the government introduced demonetisation and the GST reforms, and who exactly benefited from the name-change policy? This requires us to ask why Adivasis are being butchered in the jungles that they adore and why Dalits continue to suffer the worst social atrocities in the country. This requires us to ask why farmers protested and whether we should dismiss them as Khalistanis?And most importantly, this would require us to sit with ourselves, and maybe even our parents, relatives, neighbours and friends and ask a very difficult question: why all this happened on our collective watch? What made us turn our head around, each time, such news popped on our newsfeed? Because surely, if we have collectively stepped out at this hour to raise our voice at this grave injustice, then it is not that humanity is dead within us and our hearts are cold as stone. But, why, were we quiet earlier?A group of policemen on the streets near Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. Photo: Special Arrangement.To detangle the NEET thread from the big ball of India’s corrupt system, we will need to grapple with why we sat through the years of religious persecution that this same government which has leaked the paper did (and continues to do till today) to our own people from minority religious communities. This becomes clearer when we think about the private university based in Rampur that educates many young people just like us, is counting days until its demolition.Twenty eight of its 30 buildings have been declared ‘illegal’ and will be ripped apart by the government. It will be a grave loss to the people of that region, in terms of both educational opportunities and loss of employment.By using rules of legality, the Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh seems to be taking a politically motivated decision since the university is not only built by a political figure who the ruling government hates but also has many students from religious communities that our government has systematically sidelined.A protestor wrote on a road in New Delhi: “RSS go to hell” Photo: Special Arrangement.This requires us to ask what is the real reason why Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS), Ambani-Adanis and many others continue to become richer and more powerful while the rest of us work harder and live more precarious lives? We must ask why some people who asked these exact questions in the past are jailed and why do they continue to remain so without committing any real crime. The same Delhi Police which have assaulted our bodies and attempted to silence our spirit assaulted them in 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2021. We must demand answers for them all.Also read: BJP’s Responses to the Youth Movement Show the Party is on the BackfootAnd once we have answers to this question, we should turn our heads to other systemic questions of national importance that trouble the situation in our country, and it is here when we’ll realise that there are a few simple things behind most: power and money. And so, if we need to fight power and money, we cannot simply do while raising a singular question. We will need to ask several questions and ask them all at once.And to be able to do any of this, we need to develop mechanisms and processes where we can function in an organised manner. Right now, we are free-spirited and it can backfire if we don’t channel it properly. Our decisions should be taken democratically not just by a few select members who gave the idea of this collective struggle.A protestor holds a playcard that reads, “Long live revolution”. Photo: Special Arrangement.While we should be grateful for their timely suggestion, they simply don’t become our representatives because of it. We should fine tune the demands that we have from this struggle and that would require us to map the realities of the different people who come and become a part of it. We should fine tune and identify the way in which we shall be leading this struggle. Let us bring our collective strengths together and contribute to this like a group.We must accept and understand that this is a repressive government where the prime minister has not done a single press conference in the last 12 years. This is a government which completely controls the narrative that runs on national television and has turned many of the journalists working at these channels into puppets of the regime. This is a government where the prime minister ran away when a Norwegian journalist asked him about the standard of press freedom in our country.A group of young protestors hold a poster that reads, “No youth, no future.” Photo: Atul Ashok Howale.This is not a prime minister or a government which will accept questions or dissent. Maybe many of us are new protestors, but being a regular one, I can assure you that it does not like questions and will upturn every stone to shut up anyone who dares to ask. So, we should expect and prepare well for the repression that comes our way.This requires us to understand how to protect ourselves from tear gas, stones and lathi charge (the best we can), but also requires us to learn how to digitally protect ourselves. We are a digital generation, and I believe it should not be difficult for us to adapt to these strategies – but first, we must think and identify these different types of protections we need to work out.And at each point of this journey, we should keep in mind something that Ambedkar said: Educate, Agitate, Organise.And this is what I ask of you, my friends. I understand the list is long and the task is hard, but if we think along these lines and work together, we might do something historical that none of us will forget. Paran Amitava is a PhD Scholar at Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU and the vice-president of the Student Federation of India (JNU Unit).