Weeks after thousands of young Indians poured onto the streets of Delhi in a major ‘cockroach’ protest over examination paper leaks, another group of frustrated job seekers is making headlines – this time hundreds of miles away, in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
Protesters have gathered at a stadium in the state capital Ranchi, since 25 July, demanding an overhaul of the state’s government examination system. Some have been sleeping in the open and several have gone on hunger strike.
Umme Habiba is one of them.
The 27-year-old, from a farming family from Bokaro, has spent years preparing for Jharkhand’s civil service examination, hoping it would get her the security of a government job. She has already sat the exam three times and hoped to get a good score this time.
“We want justice. We will not leave until we get it, even if it costs us our lives,” she said.
The immediate cause of the anger is a preliminary civil service examination held in April.
After the results were announced in July, candidates alleged that leaked answer sheets shared on social media showed some successful applicants had answered far fewer questions than expected.
This fuelled suspicions that the results had been manipulated. The protesters want the exam scrapped and held again. They also want the case investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s premier federal investigative agency.
The allegations are being investigated by Jharkhand’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Jharkhand Public Service Commission has since postponed the next stage of the examination. Its chairman, L Khiangte, resigned on 22 July and has been questioned as part of the investigation.
Investigators are also examining the role of a private company that conducted parts of the examination process, after candidates raised questions about how it was selected.
Deepika Pandey Singh, a minister in the Jharkhand government, told the BBC that the state had begun investigating the allegations even before the current protest.
She urged protesters to let the CID complete its investigation instead of handing the case to the CBI. “We want a fair investigation,” she said, adding that anyone responsible – “whether a bureaucrat, employee, middleman or a big politician” – would face action. She also said the government would discuss the protesters’ demand to cancel the April exam with them directly.
