I often wonder whether modern society, despite all its progress, understands intelligence far less than the ancient world did. Socrates said this in the 5th century BC: 'I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make them think.'
This one line decimates our entire exam-obsessed culture. And it brings me to my firm conviction that exams are not instruments of learning. They are the greatest enemies of the very people they claim to educate. If the education system ever truly modernises, the first thing it should scrap is the cult of examination.
And yet, for the first time in my life, I find myself obligated to act against my own conviction. The shift in my position is not because I suddenly believe in the merit of the examination system, but because the reactions to exam results have become far more terrifying than the exam itself.
Vaishno Devi Medical College Row
The recently conducted entrance examination at Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College triggered an unexpected pandemonium, the moment the results were announced. Before the students could even take their first step toward becoming doctors, a doctored vilification was already on the anvil.
Medical college seats in India are allotted on the basis of NEET, the nationwide exam conducted by the National Testing Agency operating under the Ministry of Higher Education. Muslims formed the majority of those who qualified, while only a minority from the Majority community made it to the list.
It was an arithmetic irony that quickly spiralled into political histrionics.
The moment of euphoria for the applicants was timed into ‘communal rage’ with Hindu organisations of Jammu taking to the streets. Invoking ‘demographic imbalance’ like it’s a medical emergency, these organisations now want either a cap on Muslim candidates or a booster dose of quotas for Hindus.
The debate has travelled from exam halls to identity wards, where the real diagnosis is not unfair results but an allergy to Muslim achievement. The idea of open merit is now touted as a civilisational support system for the majority, activated only when the scoreboard threatens to look unfamiliar. Merit takes over demography.
Merit and Convenient Conspiracies
This is nearly an annual custom. A nationwide talent hunt for conspiracies starts if a Dalit or OBC or Muslim or Adivasi tops the merit list. To them, procedures are never amiss but merit seems to fall into the hands of people who are not authorised by society. The Vaishno Devi Medical College pandemonium is just the most recent in a long list of such indignation.
In such protests, an unstated confirmation bias is already at work – that, a medical college near a Hindu shrine must be filled with Hindu students. This raises a curious question. In Jammu’s debates over representation, merit, exclusion and inclusion, does divinity also sit at the table? And if so, does the divine truly have time to micromanage admission lists? The absurdity is jarring. The same Hindu organisations cried foul over the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University.
Exams are capitalism’s most cherished rite. It creates a system that turns students into numbers, packages anxiety into profitable products and worships “merit” while ignoring inequality. Critics have long argued that competitive exams are never about character or destiny. They are capitalism’s hierarchic contrivance, which grades an entire generation into despair.
Medical admissions are an apostrophe to this. Most aspirants are chosen not by talent but by high fees and unequal access to resources. Results, therefore, demonstrate who could measure up to time, discipline, and cramming. Instead of targeting students for their identity, these Hindu organisations should ask better questions: Why are exams in India so structurally unequal? Why do exams reward rote learning?
The unease caused by Muslim students topping the list in greater numbers stems from the uncertainty of a wounded pride rather than the idea of representation. The idea that the majority must always be on top and that any deviation is outrageous has long been upheld by majoritarian politics. Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College results have only added salt to the wound.
Demands for ‘demographic balance’ and quotas for non-Muslims would be hilarious if they weren’t so dangerously anti-intellectual. Should infirmaries now hire surgeons the way political parties distribute tickets? Must a doctor pause suturing and stapling to verify whether the patient is Hindu or not? And if a doctor’s religion is ‘under-represented,’ will she/he do extra-pious surgery?
If colleges and universities concede to these whims, India would soon upgrade superstition into a formal admissions policy. This sounds like a dystopia. Or, have we already turned this dystopia into the new normal?
Shaming a Community
Since very long, India has internalised the myth that Muslims are ‘educationally backward.’ Of course, that’s true. Even Mehta Report (2023) confirms that the Gross Enrollment Ratio of Muslims at the higher education level remains significantly below national average. In fact, this vulnerability is nothing to be proud of, if we are proud of ourselves as Indians.
Rather than hammering this truth, we play out the stereotype of our cultural conveniences. We shame them and want them to be in this state perpetually.
On top of it, when Muslim students perform exceedingly well in competitive exams, the society begins to test them in the form of outrage. Their convenient narrative collapses which they have lovingly nurtured for a very long time. After all, how a community long portrayed as ‘crawling’ dares to surge ahead? What will happen to majoritarianism if minorities refuse to be vulnerable?
Therefore, the row over the Vaishno Devi medical entrance results is not about the sanctity of competitive exams. It is about protecting a meta-narrative which majoritarian politics has kept alive since independence. When Muslim students outshine, they breach the political fantasy.
It’s not about one college or one university. It’s also not about the education system that is tailored to produce and reproduce vulnerabilities, which has nothing much to lose, anyway. What is at loss here is the society itself. It keeps failing as a society. It keeps testing vulnerable students, and every time it fails. Will it ever be tested to pass?
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