The students' protest in progress in New Delhi
The government's effort to address the controversial issue of aptitude tests in the Civil Service preliminary examinations, instead of quelling the protests by UPSC aspirants, has only served to intensify the agitation.
Calling the government's move to scale down the importance of "English language comprehension skills" an eyewash, the protesters are sticking to their demand that the Civil Services Aptitude Test, or CSAT, be scrapped.
With the civil services preliminary exams scheduled to begin later this month, the two-month-old protests had gathered steam. And after the Opposition climbed the bandwagon, the government, earlier today, said in Paper II, the marks in the section on "English language comprehension skills" will not be included for gradation or merit.
But students say the English comprehension portion did not even figure in their list of demands. The CSAT exam, they contend, should be scrapped completely. Their other key demands include the postponement of the exam, which starts on August 24, and the removal of bias against Indian languages in all three stages the exam - preliminary, mains and the interview.
"The government's decision is a big let-down," said Angesh Kumar, who is on protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar. "Mr Rajnath Singh (Union home minister) had assured us that our concerns will be addressed once Mr Narendra Modi came to power. But nothing of the sort has happened," added the youth, who has done his MA in Hindi literature from Delhi University.
"Of our 7-point charter of demands, which we had presented to Mr Singh three weeks ago, only the last one has been accepted," said Subhankar Vats, who hails from Jharkhand's Godda district. This concerned an extra chance for candidates who appeared in the exam in 2011. "This can, at best, help a few hundred, compared to the lakhs who would benefit if all our demands be met," he added.
Introduced in 2011, the CSAT was challenged in court, following which a committee was set up to look into the issue. The opposition maintains that since the new pattern was introduced, the number of non-English speaking candidates to succeed has dropped sharply.