I don’t think I have a small problem. It is huge. Apparently, something historic happened at Jantar Mantar, and I, a senior citizen of this country, suffer from Fully Informed Ignorance about what really happened, why it happened and what exactly we achieved.
Definitely, whoever was protesting for whatever reason won. The students won. The Government lost. Democracy won. Agitation won. The Education Minister lost. Or perhaps the Government won because it finally listened. The Opposition definitely won some political space, and so did the oldest youngster from the famed political family.
Everybody seems to know what happened at Jantar Mantar and has a strong opinion about the whole circus.
Except me.
The citizen for whom, supposedly, the entire performance was staged.
The protest initiated by CJP (Cockroach Janta Party) at Jantar Mantar over examination irregularities and paper leaks lasted weeks, acquired a wider constituency and considerable public sympathy. It reached Parliament’s political doorstep. The Government negotiated. The Education Minister resigned. The protest was called off. Cases against student protesters, including some allegedly involved in violence, are to be withdrawn.
So, victory?
Maybe.
But who won? More importantly, was all this necessary?
Newspapers and television gave me professionally packaged of the agitation at Jantar Mantar, sanitised and conveniently skewed titbits punctuated by Breaking News. WhatsApp University supplied passionately forwarded nuggets and confidently manufactured conclusions. Instagram and Facebook offered algorithmically selected truths. X never even came to a proper boil.
After consuming all this in search of the real picture, I attained that magnificent modern state called Fully Informed Ignorance.
I still don’t know who hijacked whom, who genuinely represented the students, who was settling political scores, who provoked whom when things turned violent, or exactly when examination reform became resignation-or-nothing.
Naturally, the Opposition found political space. That is its job. The Government served the opportunity on a platter, unless this is some five-dimensional political chess invisible to ordinary mortals.
Leaving the door ajar and expecting the Opposition not to put a toe inside is like leaving jalebi on the table and blaming the ants.
And there seemed to be enough ants around the main agenda.
But this is where the Government worries me.
Why does empathy arrive after barricades?
Why does dialogue become attractive after confrontation?
Why, after a decade in power, do national examinations still produce uncertainty over leaks, security, schedules and results?
We can’t blame Nehru for everything.
A 100% foolproof system may be impossible. But an NTA heavily dependent on outsourced services hardly inspires confidence.
The approach should have been simple:
listen early. Empathise early. Talk early. Admit problems. Establish accountability. Fix loopholes. Test the fixes.
The examination system needs surgery, not political physiotherapy.
Reconstitute NTA. Make accountability brutally clear. Move towards secure technology-enabled examinations wherever feasible. Technology can create differently sequenced, normalised-difficulty question sets delivered directly on-screen in random order. Reduce vulnerable points. Establish a watertight protocol for examinations of national importance. Audit it. Stress-test it. Hack-test it. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Don’t solve a twenty-first-century examination-security problem by retreating into a twentieth-century system merely because paper feels reassuring.
And don’t fight twenty-first-century political storms with twentieth-century crisis management.
Then comes the resignation.
If accountability and moral responsibility demanded the Education Minister’s resignation, it should have come when it represented accountability. After weeks of agitation, it risks looking less like accountability and more like surrender to street pressure.
That precedent worries me.
Today, the demand may be justified. Tomorrow, will ministerial tenure be decided by the decibel level at Jantar Mantar?
Resignations rarely repair systems. Accountability might.
There is another uncomfortable dissonance. Cases against peaceful student protesters can be withdrawn. But those identified through evidence as inciting violence, attacking law enforcers or damaging public property should face due process. Equally, police personnel acting lawfully in self-defence or following legitimate orders should not automatically become convenient villains.
Accountability must travel both ways and upwards through the command chain.
Perhaps my Fully Informed Ignorance is showing again.
Because I have spent this column commenting on something I admit I don’t completely understand while holding rather strong views about what should happen next.
NTA needs a reboot. Examination SOPs need rewriting and relentless stress-testing. Leaks must become extraordinarily difficult, accountability unavoidable, and examination and result timelines predictable.
Welcome to democracy in the algorithmic age.
We receive filtered news, forwarded truth, algorithm-approved reality and politically convenient facts. Then we choose the version we like and defend it passionately.
That is Fully Informed Ignorance (FII).
And perhaps the real Jantar Mantar paradox is that everybody won. Except certainty about the next exam.
Published first with mxmindia.com on Monday 27th July 2026.
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