AA Edit | Modi, Metas & Protesters: Be Sincere, Not Indulgent

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s offer of pardon to the student protesters who allegedly hurled abuses at him during their recent agitation and their response demanding an apology from him instead for the police brutality on them mark a defining moment in Indian politics. The whole episode makes it evident that only honest communication can work with India’s youth who are nothing but irreverent towards anything bereft of a true understanding of the events, unlike in the past when emotions played a crucial role. It’s for the Prime Minister and his administration, and politicians of all hues, too, for that matter with their decades of standing to ruminate about this lesson and come up with a strategy that can keep youth engaged.

The facts that make the background for the exchange are pretty obvious, stark and evident: The Union government was callous and criminally negligent when it conducted an entrance examination which lakhs of students and their families considered critical in their lives. It then played around with a qualifying examination which, again, impacted millions of students. The government offered no apologies to them; instead, it came up with ad hoc measures and quick fixes. That the Neet paper leak happened through the very persons who were commissioned to set the question papers signals the deep rot that had set in the system and how ignorant and oblivious the government was of what was happening right under its very nose. The way the government gave a company with criminal antecedents access to the CBSE paper valuation process adds to its culpability. Worse, the government did nothing to bring out the truth; the affected students themselves did the job.

The protesters were forced to come out on the streets when the government started acting as if everything was hunky-dory and that the nation can return to business as usual. Insensitive government apparatchiks even now contend that the flawless conduct of the repeat examination of Neet is proof enough of the government’s commitment to the student community; they refuse to understand, leave alone empathise with, the agony that millions of students were made to suffer. Some 23 of them called it a day and took refuge in the cold hands of death is of no consequence to them.

So, Prime Minister Modi, his government and his party must recognise the fact that the government erred first, and it erred again when it unleashed police brutality on unsuspecting students protesting against what they perceive as a grave injustice to them. It’s impious then to make an offer of pardon to them; it’s very normal that they attach little value to it.

So, let the government make a clean breast of its mistakes and incompetencies and open an honest attempt to communicate with them. Show them proof of remorse by taking concrete steps to ensure that these will not be repeated and the wrongdoers are being made to pay for their crimes. The formation of an expert committee to revamp the National Testing Agency and tightening of the anti-paper leak law are highly unlikely to impress them for they are a repeat of the ineffective steps the government had taken in the past. Grandstanding and condescending gestures are anathema to them; so is victim-playing. There are no substitutes for honesty, transparency and truthfulness. They work with all generations; and Generation Z is no different in this respect.