Saturday, 04 January 2025
Saturday, 04 January 2025
The Patna police’s crackdown Sunday on the protesters demanding cancellation of a recent Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) has incensed students and teachers alike.
The stalemate over the students’ demand is not helping.
More than five lakh candidates had appeared for the Combined Competitive Examination conducted by the BPSC on December 13 when hundreds of candidates boycotted the test alleging that question papers had been leaked.
The commission claimed there was a “conspiracy” to get the exam cancelled. However, re-examination was ordered for more than 10,000 candidates, who had been assigned Bapu Pariksha Parisar in the capital city, the lone examination centre in Bihar where the test was disrupted.
Since then, chief secretary Amrit Lal Meena has held talks with a section of protesters. Governor Rajendra Arlekar also summoned BPSC chairman Parmar Ravi on Monday.
Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor, whose party colleague and retired IPS officer R.K. Mishra was among those who met Meena, asked the protesters to give "48 hours to the Nitish Kumar government", and said they could resume their stir if no solution came forth by the time.
Bihar education minister Sunil Kumar told journalists: "The BPSC is a competent authority. It is assessing the situation and will take an appropriate decision at an appropriate time".
"The commission is ready to give a hearing to the protesting candidates. But they must understand that cancelling the entire exam is out of the question," BPSC secretary Satya Prakash Sharma told a news channel.
However, this has met with resentment from a section of aspirants who believe that for the sake of a "level-playing field", fresh examination should be ordered for all the candidates who had appeared at 912 centres.
The protests have received support from most parties opposed to the state's ruling NDA.
Students allege that CCTV cameras and mobile-phone jammers were non-functional at many centres, question papers were distributed late and there were reports of paper leaks.
‘The government has no shame left’
Ujala Kumari, 28, a teacher from Patna, sided with the students.
“I know what my students are going through and this is 100 per cent the fault of the government,” she said. “The government authorities should come forward and listen and understand what the students have to say. They are just thinking about themselves and their money.”
She said her teaching colleagues as well as her students have gone to the protest.
“My colleague also had to face lathicharge along with my students. I just want to tell the authorities that they have no shame left in them. I also want to ask them how they can confirm that the paper leak has happened only in one centre when complaints are coming from multiple locations,” she said.
‘This is unfair’
Shivam Shree, 27, a protester, pointed out that from the start they were protesting at Gardani Bagh in Patna, as it is a place allotted by the government for protests.
“We were protesting against normalisation, paper leak, re-exam and so on. Nobody from the government side came to us for talks or any kind of meeting nor were we allowed to meet. Prashant Kishor who came to us later as Gardani Bagh was a small place he called for a protest in Gandhi Maidan later and students from all districts of Bihar came in to join and support.
“Later, we discussed what to do and finalised that we would meet the CM but he had gone to Delhi. Students said they wanted immediate answers as we had been protesting for 13 to 14 days and some of them were also on hunger strike.
“Prashant Kishor later gave a 4pm deadline to the government on December 29 either to bring out a notice or to come and discuss with us. No notice came from the government and hence we took out a march from Gandhi Maidan to reach the CM’s office and then in the middle police came to stop us by putting barricades in JP roundabout area which is usually a busy road of the city.”
“Our CM himself has risen from the JP movement, so we thought if we protest there he will also show some mercy towards us and hence we sat down there. Prashant Kishor had initially promised us that if there is lathicharge I will take it first and later he indulged in some diplomatic talks where he sent a delegation of five students and asked us to vacate the road. When we refused to do so till we got a formal notice, he left the scene. Patna city SP announced that we should also leave as Prashant Kishor left.
“It was after this that the lathicharge started,” he said.
‘Students deserve a dialogue’
S.S. Upadhyay, 53, a teacher from Patna said the government should come forward and speak to the protesting students.
“There has been delay in that and that's why the matter has gone so far. The students are facing so much trouble. Today, the CM has a meeting related to this issue and we look forward to a positive solution,” he said.
‘We were beaten like animals’
Sumit Raj, a protester, questioned how could the results be declared without normalisation if re-exam takes place for a few students.
“We have been beaten so much by the police ever since the protests started in the beginning of December. What do they think? Neither is the government is talking to us nor is it trying to understand what we are saying, British rule was much better than this at least they came to talk. Here we are just lathicharged.
“The difficulty level we had in the exam we gave recently was so low, this is nowhere close to the level of the post for which we are studying so hard,” Raj said. “I have been preparing for this exam for so many days and this is the question paper I get? This is the level? What is the government trying to prove? This is just a game being played with the students.
“We were beaten so badly, no one would even thrash an animal like that. Even girls were hit very badly. I don’t understand what type of a government this is!”
‘Protest was peaceful, but we were attacked’
Ramendra Kumar Pandey, 33, a BPSC aspirant from Patna, said the protest was peaceful at Gardhani Bagh.
“Prashant Kishor entered our protest at 1:40pm and on his call we proceeded towards Gandhi Maidan. Midway, he received a call and left us without listening to us. Soon after the police fired water cannon. This happened around 7:35 pm. We were beaten like animals by the police officials.
“We want re-exam for all, there cannot be a 1,400 m race for some and 1,600 m for some; this is unfair. The results will be announced by normalisation if this is followed which is again unfair.”
He, too, said the questions were too easy.
“The questions were like where is Bangla Sahib of Patna located? Is this a question one asks in the BPSC? In the next exam they will ask where the Taj Mahal is located? Why are we studying so much for this? What did they get by lathicharging us? If Prashant Kishor had told us that he will take the first lathi, then why did he run?"
