The students protesting at Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium seem to be taking forward a flame lit at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. The agitation in the Jharkhand capital, which got going in earnest just around the time the one in the national capital was called off, is drawing attention to a series of exam irregularities. Like Sonam Wangchuk in Delhi, student leader Devendra Mahto has gone on a fast along with a few other protesters. And on Monday, the protesters marched to the legislature, from where they were evicted by force. But that is where the similarities end.
Unlike in Delhi, no demand for any minister’s resignation has been aired yet in Ranchi. Instead, the students are demanding a CBI investigation into a series of recruitment glitches. Although the government has held three rounds of talks with them and cancelled the Jharkhand Public Service Commission’s (JPSC) latest exam held in April, along with previous rounds held in 2023 and 2025, the students are steadfast in calling for a wider probe into the state Staff Selection Commission’s Combined Graduate Level exams as well as the Lucknow-based testing agency at the centre of the allegations. The government has dismissed a former JPSC chief and pointed to a court-mandated CID probe going on in the Staff Selection Commission’s exam. Also, the state police have been far less brutal in pushing back the students, using lathis and water cannons—not pellet guns, whose use in Delhi is being litigated in the Supreme Court, or assault rifles, whose use in neighbouring Bihar is being investigated. However, Rahul Gandhi—leader of the Congress, which has four ministers in Jharkhand’s 11-member Cabinet—has decried the use of force against students in Ranchi.
The agitators’ desperation is accentuated by the high value attached to government jobs in Jharkhand, where household income is about half the national average. The situation is made worse by large-scale displacement disrupting livelihoods. The students are up against a system they allege is stacked by those who paid their way into government jobs. Like across the nation, the rot in Jharkhand’s exam system runs deeper than a few cosmetic changes can address. It would be best if political parties, whose student arms seem keen on crowding into the protest space, stay away to let the students ensure a fairer future for themselves.