NEET protests in Tamil Nadu – Debunking the false propaganda of sections of the media and politicians
- In Current Affairs
- 11:43 AM, Sep 09, 2017
- Saiganesh Sritharan
The tragic suicide of Anitha in Tamilnadu because of failing to get the medical seat due to low score in NEET had become a sensational issue in the state. It’s sad to see a girl kill herself at a very young age but we should analyze this issue in a deeper manner to find the real issues behind it.
Let’s debunk the arguments against NEET first and then see about the false propaganda by media and political parties, questions regarding Anitha’s death and finally about Anti-NEET protests.
The arguments and questions against NEET are here followed by the answers:
1) NEET is against the poor students studying in government schools, it destroys the dreams of these students with aspirations of becoming doctor.
Answer: To find the answer for this question, we should analyze about the previous system and should check whether the previous system favors poor really? The answer is no which can be proven from the stats of previous years. Between the years, 2006-2016, there are 29000 students admitted in government colleges out of which only 213 students were from government schools, which is approximately 0.75%. This implies that the number of students from government schools studying in government medical colleges is approximately 20 every year. When the old system doesn’t favor the poor students studying in government colleges, what’s the point in blaming NEET? The truth is that there are some fair chances for increase in percentage of government school students studying in government colleges when the students are admitted through NEET.
2) Medical council of India follows CBSE syllabus while preparing the question paper for NEET which is not fair as different boards have different standard.
Answer: Let’s see what the official syllabus from Medical council of India states:
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“The Medical Council of India (MCI) recommends the following syllabus for National
Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for admission to MBBS courses across the country (NEETUG)
after review of various State syllabi as well as those prepared by CBSE, NCERT and
COBSE. This is to establish a uniformity across the country keeping in view the
relevance of different areas in medical education.”
This clearly concludes that NEET questions are prepared considering all the boards and syllabi in the country and thus this is enough to answer the critics of NEET.
3) When TN has many top doctors in the country and a pioneer in healthcare among Indian states, what’s the need of changing the admission system in the state?
Answer: The previous process of admitting students through board exams in TN was started just around 2006. Before that a separate entrance was conducted by state to admit students for MBBS. Only less number of students, who got admitted to their MBBS between 2006 to 2016 would have become doctor, as many of these students are doing their post graduate studies or undergraduate studies. This implies that the percentage of doctors in TN who are all result of the previous system of admission is very less and these less numbers are still inexperienced. The real strength of present Tamilnadu healthcare system lies with the doctors who got their undergraduate admission through state entrance exam, which was conducted before 2006. The doctors who had completed their degree in quality private colleges and foreign universities also add value to the state healthcare system. The reason for failure of previous system is that most of the students in Tamilnadu state board study by replicating the book theory in exam paper without understanding the concepts. Thus, students enter the graduation without proper understanding where they graduate after a huge struggle and this lack of understanding also reflects in their job once they become doctors. Thus, this old system of admitting doctors could spoil the future healthcare system in Tamilnadu and thus NEET is must to change better the future healthcare of the state.
Now, the arguments against NEET in Tamilnadu are answered and now let’s come to the big picture, the suicide of Anitha. Let’s see how media made this issue as a sensation for political motives and let’s debunk few facts regarding this.
Before analysis, let’s see few facts:
According to 2015 data (the latest available):
Number of student suicides in India in 2015: 8934
Number of student suicides in Tamilnadu in 2015: 955 (2nd highest in India)
It’s impossible to expect media to talk about all these suicides but it is the responsibility of media to cover the sensitive ones. There is nothing wrong in covering Anitha suicide, but the way they made this into a sensation is unfair. A 12 year girl in the district of Tirunelveli killed herself due to period shaming by a school teacher, which is a far more sensitive issue than NEET. But media failed to speak about this issue like the NEET issue, although both the suicides happened around the same time. This clearly shows that TN media is getting benefitted by covering the NEET issue and manipulating it for the own benefits. Let’s see the benefits that media may get by criticizing NEET.
- Many of the media houses in Tamilnadu are owned by a regional political party or indirect supporters of a party. Many of the politicians in these political parties own private medical colleges and they charge exorbitant fees (Nearly One Crore or more than one Crore) to admit students in management quota. NEET will reduce the number of seats in management quota and thus the amount of fees that these politicians get through management quota will get reduced. Hence, the politicians use their media houses to spread false propaganda over NEET, so that they may get gains if NEET is exempted from Tamilnadu.
- There are few media houses, which are directly owned my private medical colleges. The prime example is the Puthiyathalaimurai TV, which was owned by SRM University and they wanted to spread fake propaganda against NEET to preserve their money coming from management quota seats.
Preserving the management quota is just a single dimension of the agitations of regional politicians and their agitations are multi-dimensional and their main aim is to create hatred on BJP-led central government among the people of Tamilnadu. Let’s arise few questions to those who had made this suicide as a sensation.
- After the Supreme Court verdict, Anitha told if she didn’t get a medical seat, she is interested in pursuing agriculture,. When the girl is clear on her future plans, what led her to take the decision of committing suicide?
- She got seat in aeronautical engineering in Madras institute of technology. If her sole aim and dream is it to get a doctor as speculated in media, why she attended the engineering counseling? Does it mean, she was open with other options but demotivated and persuaded to commit suicide?
- When there are two more attempts for her to clear NEET, why didn’t she try that? A girl who had guts to fight in Supreme Court, doesn’t have determination to try NEET in next attempt? Does this also indicate that she is persuaded to suicide?
- DMK sponsored her and took her to court but why didn’t they give her hopes on clearing NEET in the next attempt? Is demotivation by DMK people after the court verdict reason for her suicide? Is she used by DMK for the party’s political gains?
- Did she study in government school as portrayed by media? Many reports say that she studied in a residential school near her hometown which is contrary to Tamilnadu media reports.
- She has three brothers. One work in a private bank, other studying in private engineering college and the third one is preparing for UPSC in a coaching institute in Chennai. Is she really ignorant as portrayed by media, when she has well educated brothers?
- Tamilnadu government had donated Rs.7.5 lakhs to her family for the loss of their daughter and DMK leader Stalin donated Rs. 10Lakhs to the family. As soon as Stalin announced the donation to the family, Anitha’s family told Tamilnadu Government that they won’t accept the donation from Tamilnadu government until NEET is permanently exempted from Tamilnadu. Is the donation from DMK reason for the family to reject the donation from the government claiming NEET exemption?
- Why TN is the only state where central government’s Navodaya schools (from where the percentage of students cleared NEET is high) is not allowed to open? These schools provide free high quality education to rural students.
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Many such questions arise in this mysterious death of the young girl and ultimately we have to feel for the death of young innocent girl, who had a great life to live.
Now, let’s look into how this issue of NEET and suicide of Anitha is sensationalized and how many small scale protests are started in Tamilnadu. Obviously, these protests are funded by many external elements and their biggest motive is “Breaking India” and thus hatred against Central government is created in Tamilnadu. Let’s see how the various aspects of Anti-NEET protests and the work of “Breaking India” forces:
- Anti-NEET protests are started by various universities like SRM University in Tamilnadu, whose motive is to ban NEET to preserve their donation in management quota. They itself stimulate their college students to protest and these protests spread to various other colleges throughout Tamilnadu and these protests also spread to non-medical colleges and thus students of many colleges ended up doing small scale protests.
- Let’s come to the bigger issue on the work of “Breaking India” forces. Seeman, the president of political party “Naam Tamilar Katchi” is known for organizing fake protests for various issues in Tamilnadu. Even though his party lacks vote base and treasury in the state, he is able to raise funds for his protests through foreign Church missionaries and thus he organizes Anti-NEET protests in various places in Tamilnadu through the help of “Breaking India” forces. Seeman is also known for asking a separate Tamil country and his anti-national views are evident in his protests.
- Protests are organized by DMK throughout Tamilnadu and with their party’s treasury, it’s easy to fund protests on their own.
- Communists are the first to start anti-NEET protests in Tamilnadu. It’s a big surprise that they have accepted the NEET in Kerala but fighting against NEET in Tamilnadu.
- Actor Kamal Haasan, who is voicing for Dravidian movement in recent times have met the communist chief minister of Kerala a few days back. Just two days after his meeting, he is stimulating the viewers and Tamilnadu people to fight for NEET exemption in Tamilnadu. Is this a bigger game of leftist and “Breaking India” forces?
- Viduthalai Sirutahigal Katchi, which has heavy funding by NGOs organizes protests in various places.
- These protests are also stimulated by many social media accounts with huge followers. Many of these accounts are bought by the political parties and “Breaking India” forces to spread the ideas to protest and because of these many genuine social media accounts get motivated by the false propagations and tweet/write pro-protest posts.
- Many film fraternities and directors have huge cult following and these personalities are motivated by the anti-government ideologies and their posts create huge hatred on Government and NEET among their followers. Let’s see one such tweet from the famous director Ram,
- நீட் ஒரு அரசபயங்கரவாதம். 12 வருட உழைப்பை, கனவை, அனிதாவை படுகொலை செய்த பயங்கரவாதம்.”
This means,
“NEET is an authoritative terrorism, it is the terrorism which had killed the 12 years of hardwork of Anitha”
This clearly says that the words like terrorism are used to create hatred on central government and NEET among the people. The director of the film Kabali, Ranjith talks about his intolerance towards BJP government and unnecessarily brings in Hinduism to condemn NEET. Many such directors come up with such talks and posts and this creates more hatred among people as each of these directors has many cult followers.
- Let’s see the work of Christian educational institutions in these protests. Loyala College in Chennai is one of the college which started anti-NEET protests and everyone knows this college has funding from foreign missionaries. Christian medical college in Vellore had halted the NEET based admissions in their college which is against the Supreme Court order and is expected to put a huge fight in this issue. These are all the various works of “Breaking India” forces in organizing Anti-NEET protests in Tamilnadu.
What should be done?
- Tamilnadu government can open free NEET coaching centers to make more students clear NEET in the state. They can also provide internet facilities to government schools and upload online NEET lectures in the government site, so that government school students can view the lectures to learn.
- As the death of Anitha remains a mystery due to various questions, this case can be shifted to CBI for further investigation.
- Even though protests happen in various parts in the state, they are in a small scale. Government should make sure that this won’t burst out into large scale protest like “Pro-Jallikattu protests” as these protests are hijacked by many “Breaking India” forces.
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