The Cockroach Generation

I scored 99.97 percentile in JEE Main.

This is important context.

Because according to India, I was supposed to stop complaining after that.

I studied.

I got the percentile.

I got into engineering.

I left India for higher studies.

Statistically speaking, I am one of the success stories.

Which makes this incredibly awkward.

Because I still understand exactly why students are angry.

I wasn't cheated.

I wasn't denied an opportunity.

I didn't lose my career because of one examination.

I won.

And then I left anyway.

That should bother somebody.

Apparently, it doesn't.

India has a remarkable education system.

Not because it produces brilliant students.

It does.

Not because it produces world-class engineers.

It does.

Because it somehow manages to convince millions of children that their entire worth can be compressed into one examination hall, one OMR sheet, and one percentile.

This is efficient.

Therapy is expensive.

Every Indian child follows approximately the same software update.

Version 1.0.

School.

Version 2.0.

Coaching.

Version 3.0.

More coaching.

Version 4.0.

Mock tests.

Version 5.0.

Existential crisis.

Somewhere between Physics Wallah, Allen, FIITJEE, Resonance, Aakash and approximately fourteen thousand litres of chai...

...education quietly leaves the room.

Nobody notices.

Because everyone is busy calculating cut-offs.

Eventually results arrive.

Percentiles.

AIRs.

Instagram stories.

LinkedIn posts written by proud parents.

One student gets into IIT Bombay.

Another gets into NIT Trichy.

Someone misses by 0.04 percentile.

Someone disappears from WhatsApp forever.

India calls this meritocracy.

Mostly because "national psychological endurance competition" doesn't fit inside government brochures.

I scored 99.97 percentile.

By every conventional metric, the system worked.

It selected me.

Certified me.

Approved me.

Then I packed my bags and left.

People love calling this brain drain.

I don't entirely agree.

Brains don't leave first.

Trust does.

People follow later.

Which brings us to the Cockroach Generation.

Someone called students cockroaches.

Normally, that would end badly.

Instead, students looked at each other and collectively said:

Fair enough.

That is probably the most depressing political branding success in recent Indian history.

Because nobody needed the metaphor explained.

Everybody already understood it.

Small.

Replaceable.

Expected to survive.

Expected to adapt.

Expected to keep working.

Expected to remain grateful.

No matter what happened.

Then Sonam Wangchuk joined the movement.

This is where the story stopped being about examinations.

When the man whose entire public life has been dedicated to improving education decides the classroom is no longer enough...

...the classroom probably isn't the problem anymore.

The government should have treated that as a warning.

Instead, it treated it like another news cycle.

Governments often confuse patience with approval.

Students rarely do.

Dharmendra Pradhan now occupies one of the least enviable jobs in the country.

Officially, he is the Union Education Minister.

Unofficially, he has become the face students associate with every examination controversy, every delayed response, every unanswered question, and every promise that accountability is coming soon.

That is not entirely fair.

No education system becomes this dysfunctional because of one minister.

It also doesn't begin fixing itself if the people responsible refuse to acknowledge that trust has collapsed.

Leadership isn't about taking credit when results are good.

It is about taking responsibility when they are not.

Narendra Modi has spent years telling young Indians that they are the future.

That makes for excellent speeches.

The unfortunate thing about calling someone "the future" is that eventually the future starts asking questions.

Questions like:

Why does every examination season feel like a national crisis?

Why is accountability always coming tomorrow?

Why does every failure produce a committee instead of consequences?

Why are students expected to trust institutions that seem increasingly unwilling to earn that trust?

These are uncomfortable questions.

Governments generally prefer comfortable students.

This is not about one examination.

Or one paper leak.

Or one minister.

Or one Prime Minister.

It is about something much more dangerous.

Trust.

A country can survive bad policies.

It can survive bad governments.

It can survive bad ministers.

What it cannot survive forever is an entire generation quietly deciding that its biggest dreams are more likely to come true somewhere else.

That is not brain drain.

That is institutional failure.

People like me are usually presented as proof that the system works.

I disagree.

If one of the students who supposedly won the game still decided to build a life elsewhere...

...perhaps the prize wasn't as attractive as everyone imagined.

I am lucky.

I had another option.

Millions don't.

They stay.

They prepare again.

They fill another application.

Pay another fee.

Wait for another notification.

Refresh another website.

Hope this time is different.

Governments call this resilience.

I call it desperation with better branding.

Maybe the Cockroach Generation disappears next month.

Maybe the protests end.

Maybe Dharmendra Pradhan keeps his job.

Maybe Narendra Modi wins another election.

Politics has a remarkable ability to move on.

Students usually don't.

They remember every postponed examination.

Every leaked paper.

Every sleepless night.

Every promise.

Every excuse.

Every headline explaining why this year was an exception.

Eventually, exceptions become the system.

I scored 99.97 percentile in JEE Main.

According to the system, I was one of the winners.

According to my passport, I left.

According to millions of students still fighting to be heard...

...the examination is still ongoing.

Only now, the government is the one being tested.

Still here?

Bold choice.

मोदी जी आप इस्तीफा दे दो! और चाय बेचो.

English — Modi ji, resign! And go sell tea.

Deutsch (German) — Herr Modi, treten Sie zurück! Und verkaufen Sie Tee.

मैथिली (Maithili) — मोदी जी, अहाँ इस्तीफा दऽ दिअ! आ चाह बेचू.

भोजपुरी (Bhojpuri) — मोदी जी, रउरा इस्तीफा दे दीं! आ चाय बेचीं.