The Answer, My Friend, is Blowing in the Wind

FRANK KRISHNER

This week has seen an upheaval in the country like never before. It began on Monday, in Delhi, when students and young people who planned a peaceful march to the gates of parliament, were thwarted with  police batons, teargas, and even pellet guns. The youngsters were demanding accountability from the government.

The social media and the alternative press uncovered horrific scenes of state sponsored brutality.

On Sunday, several dispassionate observers, such as I, watched the antics of the so-called Cockroach Janata Party from the sidelines. The more politically conscious journalists were keenly commenting on this ‘game of chess’. They speculated whether the Jantar Mantar sit in led by  Abhijit Dipke - boosted by Sonam Wangchuk-  was just a ploy to draw away public attention from the campaign led by Rahul Gandhi and his Congress party. Rahul Gandhi, by the way, led the charge and was the first to demand Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation!

Till Monday morning, in many ways, the Jantar Mantar protests, for many of us, and for those in Sikkim, may have been seen as a ‘mainland issue’. The events that followed changed that. Drastically.

On Tuesday, in practically every State capital in the country, young people came out in droves in solidarity with those in Delhi, protesting the crackdown. As I write this, Sonam Wangchuk has broken his fast, but the spirit of the movement has certainly not broken.

 Accountability is something that is exasperatingly absent in the past decade in BJP run India. If one dares to ask a question, you get whataboutery, deflection and arrogance in response.

Putting that aside, what is remarkable is the eerie silence from student leaders, and civil society in Sikkim. Of course, nobody expects or wants students to storm Governor’s House or that sort of thing.

To be fair, The Sikkim University Students' Association (SUSA) issued an official statement on July 16, backing the nationwide movement against public examination leaks and supporting ongoing hunger strikes and protests at Jantar Mantar. SUSA emphasized that students from Sikkim and the North Eastern region bear a disproportionate burden when national competitive exams are compromised or delayed. They cited regional challenges such as geographical isolation, limited local coaching infrastructure, connectivity hurdles, and high expenses involved in traveling outside the state for exams and counselling.

The striking Friday morning piece, The Girl in the Rain (Fine Lines by Sarikah Atreya in SIKKIM EXPRESS), about a single female protester, braving the rain under Gandhi’s statue in MG Marg, wrenched at my heart. I asked the question: Were no students from Sikkim victims of this 2026 paper leak?

On Wednesday, SDF President and former Chief Minister Pawan Chamling noted that approximately 1,100 students from Sikkim have been impacted by the NEET controversy. He urged the Union and State governments to open a dialogue with agitating students rather than resorting to suppression, affirming that students are exercising their constitutional right to demand fairness and accountability.

The 2026 paper leak was why they scrapped the entire exam and made every single registered candidate across India retake it on June 21. Practically speaking, that means every Sikkimese student who signed up for NEET 2026 was affected — not some, all of them.

The paper leak issue is fast snowballing into a wider agitation, and the conversation is expanding even as I type these words. The seminal question is, how long must the citizen remain silent as corruption and injustice grows? How long must the electorate tolerate arrogance rather than governance? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The Answer is Blowing in the Wind!