JAIPUR, India – Five distinct memories come to mind before I dwell on the current ‘paper leak’ crisis, which raises massive questions about institutional accountability. Back when I was studying journalism at Rajasthan University, the prevailing norm was that “only girls get to the top here.” Even so, I stood no chance. It was a one-year degree program, meaning there was only one batch at a time, managed entirely by a single professor. He treated the department as his personal fiefdom. After morning classes, he would constantly be surrounded by female students, and he had even established a bizarre tradition of taking them out to restaurants.
That year, a rowdy boy from our batch decided to run for student council president. I chose to contest against him. Two close friends—Lakhan, who later became a BSP politician, and Sartaj, now a senior leader in the banking industry—stood by me to ensure I was elected unopposed. Yet, when exams rolled around, everyone knew the professor would ensure his handpicked favorite topped the class. And that is exactly what happened. Through sheer hard work, I managed to finish third. Back then, we were blind to the deeper rot of the system, so there was no real protest or resistance. During my tenure as student body president, I invited the Assembly Speaker, organized events such as a “Media Quiz,” and even brokered peace between students and faculty during a heated dispute. This was 1993—an era when friends did everything together. We traveled, studied, and ate together; around them, my safety was absolute.
When the time came for my Master’s degree, this same professor refused to abandon his feudal antics. Fortunately, a media house had launched Rajasthan’s first-ever Master’s program in journalism, and the institution brought in a highly respected academic from Chandigarh to serve as Principal. However, that professor from Rajasthan University—who was actually a Hindi literature graduate—had formed a cozy alliance with a retired official from the state’s Public Relations Department. The duo was the living embodiment of nepotism and favoritism. As exams approached, the professor revealed the names of two external examiners and offered to introduce me to them. “You’ll get a sneak peek at the question papers,” he insisted. I declined without a second thought. I was also told that one of the examiners was my statistics professor. I trusted my abilities, and without seeing a single paper in advance, I topped the class. Professor N.K. Singhi, a renowned sociologist who taught us, subsequently offered me a job at the prestigious Institute of Development Studies, where he worked. It was an incredible honor, though I passed it up to focus on my future studies and life goals.
My refusal to accept leaked papers or accompany the professor to restaurants eventually exacted a heavy toll on my PhD. He made me do his ghostwriting and editing, forced me to run the entire operations of a research journal, and never gave me a shred of credit. Whenever he called me to his house for a research discussion, he would drift into deeply personal, uncomfortable conversations, weeping over his own miseries. He was so devastated that one of his former students had married a cartoonist that he would break down in tears just narrating the story. His erratic behavior made me deeply uneasy, so I maintained a strict, safe distance. He always insisted on meeting in his home library, where the bitterness and constant taunts from his family members would filter through the walls. I would invariably leave emotionally drained.
The breaking point came when this same professor pressured me to write an entire chapter in my thesis singing his praises. I gave him a straight answer: I would walk away from my PhD before I ever degraded myself like that. Hurt and infuriated by his attitude, I walked over to the History Department and re-registered my PhD there. I was blunt: “If you want a biography praising your greatness, find someone to write a PhD on it. But I will not let that stain touch my thesis.” At the time, throwing around my weight as a working journalist gave me just enough leverage to push back. Terrified of public disgrace, he restrained himself and returned me to my original registration. After this ordeal, I finished my PhD entirely on my own terms. A bitter, exhausting chapter of my life finally closed. Around the same time, a Delhi-based retired professor, famous for his textbooks, offered to write my entire thesis for a price. I was both puzzled and shocked.
The next incident involved a neighbor from my youth. Since the 1970s, our house had been the only one in the mohalla with a telephone—a government landline, courtesy of my father’s job in the Telecom Department. During exam season, a neighborhood boy studying for his BSc would constantly drop by under the pretext of making a call, stretching the conversations out for ages. None of us liked it. Eventually, I noticed he always arrived with a pen and paper, scribbling furiously as he listened to the receiver. When I confronted him, he casually admitted that a certain professor was dictating “guess papers” (leaked exam questions) to him. “If you want them too, let me know,” he offered. I was only a first-year BSc student myself. I knew well that if anyone found out, we would bear the brunt of the punishment. After that, we cut off all ties with him and banned him from entering our home.
My third reflection takes me back to those undergraduate days. In the middle of our BSc practical exams, there was always a mad scramble among the students. Everyone was desperately trying to unmask the identity of the external examiner, believing that once they knew the name, the “rest could be managed.” Back then, exams consisted of a 100-mark written paper and a 50-mark practical. At that age, I didn’t truly grasp the web of manipulation people wove just to secure high marks. I casually mentioned to my father that many of my classmates were busy hunting for the examiner’s name. The scolding I received that day stays with me to this moment. Taking his words of caution to heart, I immersed myself in my studies while dipping my toes into student politics on the side. When I was elected Vice President of the college, and the news hit the local papers, my father finally realized I was engaging in student leadership. But because I never let my grades slip, he let it slide.
The fourth episode happened when I crossed over to the other side and became an educator myself. It was jarring to see how deeply entrenched this culture of cheating had become—it was almost universally accepted. Today, this compromise has grown into something far more sinister than a “favorite” student finding an accommodating evaluator or a corrupt Controller of Examinations arranging isolated seating. The modern leaks have unmasked characters who are absolute blots on our noble profession—educators turned central agents for the education mafia.
These experiences from my youth have, decades later, metastasized into a catastrophic nationwide crisis. The credibility of public examinations in India now stands on the brink of absolute collapse. Between 2019 and 2024 alone, at least 65 major paper leaks were documented across the country. This profound institutional failure has directly derailed the futures and career timelines of over 1.4 crore candidates, forcing the cancellation of dozens of recruitment cycles and freezing appointments to lakhs of vacant government posts for years on end. While states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Bihar have emerged as the primary epicenters of this crisis—witnessing relentless breaches in state-level and teacher recruitment exams—the epidemic has now aggressively breached the country’s highest national testing bodies. Widespread disruptions and paper thefts in premier pan-India examinations such as NEET-UG, UGC-NET, and the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) in recent years demonstrate that an expansive, inter-state, and technologically sophisticated commercial syndicate is driving these operations. Look no further than the recent NEET-UG leak scandal, where one of the central conspirators, unmasked by investigators, turned out to be Manisha Gurnath Mandhare, a senior lecturer in Botany at Pune’s Modern College, who was entrusted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) as a subject specialist on its paper-setting and translation panel. Responsible for translating the Botany and Zoology segments, Mandhare weaponized her insider access to orchestrate a highly organized racket alongside co-conspirators Manisha Waghmare and Prahlad Vitthal Rao Kulkarni, a retired chemistry professor from Latur. Together, they conducted exclusive, clandestine coaching sessions for a select group of students at Mandhare’s Pune residence, dictating leaked questions for massive financial kickbacks. Arrested by the CBI from a hotel in Mathura, Mandhare stands as a critical link in this vast inter-state financial syndicate. When the very academic experts empaneled by premier national testing agencies turn into brokers who auction public examinations to the highest bidder, the future of millions of honest, hardworking youth and the absolute integrity of the nation are left hanging in the balance.
When the teachers themselves become the lock-breakers and brokers of the system, morality, ethics, and integrity hold no value. A thick veil of falsehood has been tightly pulled over the system by people occupying high chairs, and no one has been able to tear it away. Think also about the consequences: when hordes of students who treat exams as a joke manipulate their way into the system, what value do their future decisions hold? The reality of our system is that only the person who gets caught is labeled a thief. Those who have successfully infiltrated the ranks will only nurture the corrupt culture that birthed them. It is precisely through this broken ladder that people have climbed to become teachers, journalists, Vice-Chancellors, bureaucrats, and even high-ranking judges.
My fifth reflection stems from my time evaluating university and open-university exam papers. I frequently objected to the assignment of these papers and never applied to be empanelled as an examiner. In fact, I often returned the bundles, telling the administration to give them to people who actually enjoyed grading. Once, a massive stack of answer sheets was delivered to my house. Almost simultaneously, the phone rang. Some of the callers were former journalism colleagues who were currently enrolled as students. They called with an astounding sense of entitlement: “My paper must be in your stack. Do me the favor.” I was stunned. How did they even know? I immediately called the Vice-Chancellor to report the breach. Instead of addressing the crisis, she deflected: “Give me the names of the people who called you.” I snapped back, “Why don’t you investigate who leaked the examiner list from your own office?” She claimed that without a formal, written complaint from me, she couldn’t initiate an inquiry. I demanded that she first recall the answer sheets and strike my name from the examiner panel. I also sent her a formal note. Predictably, nothing changed. As time passed, I watched those very same people pass their exams, earn their doctorates, and climb even higher up the social ladder.
Yet, even within this dark room of corruption, I crossed paths with a true teacher—the gentleman from Chandigarh who had come to serve as our Principal for a brief period. He treated every sincere student well, pulling me into his research projects and ensuring everyone received full public credit in his publications. He would explain the most complex concepts casually in conversation. He, too, was deeply disheartened by the antics of the paper-leaking academic coterie. When he suffered a heart attack, my father sent me to the hospital to check on him. Even from his hospital bed, battling illness, he would crack jokes and teach me complex academic theories. This was the very same person I had fought with during my Master’s program because exams kept getting delayed. He had been bending under pressure from local factions. I had launched a relentless crusade, writing letters and fighting my way up from lower officials to the Dean and the Vice-Chancellor. Though he was furious at the time, he ultimately, defying all opposition, held the exams on schedule just to honor my plea. I topped the university in my Master’s, and later, because of his mentorship, I cleared a national-level exam on my very first attempt—finally validating the immense trust he had placed in me.
There are millions of teachers out there who are real “Gurus.” They command genuine respect and act as true influencers, passing down lessons that students carry home to their families. They are quietly raising a generation that refuses to compromise its self-respect or sell its soul. A true teacher’s lesson is simple: you will not succeed on the whims or charity of some corrupt professor. You will carve out your place in this world solely through raw talent and relentless hard work. And if you choose to be stubborn—if you choose to ask tough questions, demand the truth, and insist on accountability—you must also be prepared for the consequences. You must be prepared for the fact that people occupying the highest offices in the country might look down at you and call you a “cockroach.” The media, social platforms, and the establishment may brand you a nuisance, a disruptive activist out to break the system.
The integrity of public examinations in India now faces a deep structural collapse. In direct response to this mounting threat, the Government of India enacted the strict Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act. This legislation structurally shifts the legal focus from individual student desperation to the powerful syndicates driving the illicit market by categorizing paper leaks and organized institutional cheating as non-bailable criminal offenses. Under this law, individuals found guilty of leaking question papers, tampering with answer sheets, or hacking computerized testing systems face rigorous imprisonment ranging from three to ten years, along with mandatory fines of up to ₹1 Crore. Furthermore, the law introduces unprecedented institutional accountability to deter administrative negligence. If an examination service provider, private vendor, or printing press is found complicit in a breach, they face institutional fines of up to ₹1 Crore, a four-year ban from conducting any public examinations, and are legally liable to pay the proportional cost of re-conducting the entire test. Yet, while public anger remains at an all-time peak and the central education ministry faces intense pressure to answer for these systemic failures, the nation awaits fairness in response and action.
Ultimately, we must block out the noise of this corrupt world until genuine, structural attempts are made to permanently plug these leakages. It is also a matter of immediate urgency that the legacy of true teachers survives. We must keep fighting until the grim, institutional realities shared here become historical relics.
