While students who have done well in Board exams are celebrating at all the places, in Bihar they are cursing why have they ranked into top 10 or even top 100. These students were being asked to appear physically before the select Committee who in turn verify the credentials of these children, whether they really deserve the top ranks. They are being grilled and grinded. Even the girls who topped the prestigious all India medical examination ‘NEET’ had to appear before the Committee to display her credentials for topping the Board Examinations. Can this be termed as proper? Is this what our Prime Minister desired from his ‘Exam Warriors’?
Why then the state is not confident in responding to the veracity of its own systemic structures? Why does the system look perplexed on how these students secure good grades even when there was no teaching in schools? Probably, Board is confused how these students fared well despite taking all the precautions and stringent steps from introducing bar code on answer sheets to concealing students’ identity to installing CCTV cameras, imposing Section 144 on the days of the exams, deploying heavy police personnel to regular visits of ‘flying squads’ at the exam centres.
So how has the confidence in system come to such a low where none of us have any faith on it. And it has turned so grave now that even government officials don’t believe on the system they run. Otherwise why do they take these various measures to check the efficacy of the system itself.
Concerns with declining public trust in government system have become a permanent element of the contemporary public discourse. This concern also extends to levels of citizens’ faith in the public administration and public services. But suspicion and distrust from within is certainly a new thing.
Another related driver of trust is the capacity of governments to respond to citizen expectations. Clearly there are signs of divergence between citizen’s increased expectations for the role of the state and the functional capacities of governments’ and that this divergence is directly responsible for the growing trust deficit.
In case of Bihar where the awareness about new technologies are very low rapid implementation of new technologies could be depressing trust and leading to ‘a profound’ concern about the pace of change’.
State governments, at their level, have been merrily subverting institutions in their respective areas and the police are functioning as the militia of the system. There is hardly any commitment to improve the public delivery system.
Where will all this lead us? If system does not wake up to the threat and agrees on upholding the prestige of institutions, the future of democracy in the country would be in peril. The strength of a country is determined by the credibility of its institutions and not so much by the numerical strength of its armed forces. The founding fathers of the Indian Constitution took great care to establish certain institutions which would work as the bulwark of democracy and ensure justice, liberty, equality and fraternity to citizens. These institutions are unfortunately under attack by a predatory executive.
n this pressing situation I don’t see any relief to these ‘Exam Warriors’. And if that isn’t enough to make all Bihar Board examinees shiver with fright, what else can?
Kamal Nath Jha 