‘Students are protesting for mothers like me’

Sana Shaik had a dream. The 19-year-old aspired to open a hospital and name it after her father, Jafar Hussain.

Hussain, 50, had moved to Kuwait for work about 12 years ago from his village Proddatur in Andhra Pradesh after his business suffered serious losses.

Keen to give their girls a better education, his wife, Habib-un-Nisaa Sheikh, 40, moved to Hyderabad with their three daughters. They stayed in an apartment next to her mother.

“Sana was extremely close to her father,” Habib-un-Nisaa says. “The two would talk to each other every morning. She was aware of the sacrifices her father had made. He had to move away after suffering losses, so she wanted to dedicate her success to him.”

On May 3, 2026, when Sana walked out of the exam hall, the first call she made was to her father in Kuwait. “She triumphantly told me she had aced her papers,” Hussain said. “I told her to celebrate with her mother or go to a hotel and enjoy a meal.”

Another teenager, S. Anitha also had a dream. The 17-year-old belonged to a Dalit family from the village of Kuzhumur in Tamil Nadu. Her mother had passed away when she was seven due to an illness. Her father worked as a daily wage labourer in a vegetable market. Anitha aspired to be a doctor.

“She wanted to grow up and provide healthcare to underprivileged families like ours,” says her brother Mani Ratnam, 36. “She was a bright student right from the outset.”

She secured 98 per cent in her state board exams. It should have been more than enough to get into a college of her choice and pursue her dreams.

Both girls came from marginalised families. Both believed in their abilities to conquer societal hurdles and build a prosperous life. But their aspirations were abruptly cut short. The two tragedies were nine years apart, but a common thread bound them: the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). India’s national medical entrance examination wronged them in different ways.

Anitha died in 2017. She was the first NEET-related suicide. Sana ended her life last month. During this decade, 89 separate cases of paper leak across various exams were documented in media reports, according to an analysis by online news portal, Newslaundry, impacting at least 6.5 crore students including those appearing for NEET.

On July 20, 2026, when the collective pent-up anger of India’s youth erupted forcefully at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, the families of Anitha and Sana joined them. They travelled all the way from their respective states to the national capital to stand in solidarity with the protesting students. Read: 'I came to remind Parliament that we exist’

The Cockroach Janta Party – a meme page, which evolved into a youth movement – along with student organisations like All India Students Association (AISA) and All India Students Federation (AISF), issued a call for a peaceful march to Parliament, held on July 20, 2026.

They were demanding the resignation of the union minister for Education, Dharmendra Pradhan. For 25 days prior to this, Ladakh-based environmental activist Sonam Wangchuk and student activists Neha Bora, Manish Kumar, and Aameen Amitoj were on a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar with the same demands: accountability and transparency in educational exams and state recruitments.

Tens of thousands of people – largely youth – swarmed the streets of Jantar Mantar amidst heavy police and security deployment. The skies reverberated with anti-government slogans and the place turned into a carnival of resistance.

In response, the union government snapped the internet and rushed police and paramilitary forces to the venue.

As the day progressed, the slogans made way for the hiss of tear gas and the shouts of a lathi-charge against peaceful protestors. Their injuries included serious head wounds pouring blood. Young women had their clothes torn. Even minor students were not spared. At least three were hit with a pellet gun, which has been known to have infamously blinded many in Kashmir.

Despite the brutal crackdown, students returned to Jantar Mantar and reclaimed their protest site with even greater spirit.

Habib-un-Nisaa was horrified at the violence she witnessed, but was also inspired by the protestors. “I am an ordinary mother, and my kids are my world,” mother of the late Sana Shaik told PARI. “I have lived the life of a housewife but the people in power have disrupted it. My daughter died because of their decisions. You are supposed to protect us, not ruin our lives.”

After Sana aced her exams on May 3, 2026, the union government announced that the NEET paper had been leaked, and students would have to appear for a re-examination. She was devastated – her intense preparation had already taken a toll. NEET is a highly competitive exam, where more than two million aspirants battle for fewer than 130,000 spots in medical colleges. After years of preparation, Sana thought the pressure was finally behind her. But now she would have to go through the grind all over again.

Sadly, the weight of writing the exams again seemed greater than writing a suicide note. “I’m sorry,” she scribbled one day before the re-exam on June 21 before she hung herself in her room.

She is among over 20 students that died by suicide for the same reason.

“She didn’t answer my call that morning,” Jafar says. “Maybe if I had managed to speak to her, she would still be with us,” the distraught father says speaking at the site.

“I came all the way to express what I am going through,” the grieving mother, Habib-un-Nisaa says. She is still struggling to accept that her eldest daughter is no more. “We might die in five years, or we could be alive till we get old, but we will carry this pain for the rest of our lives,” she says. “At night, I can’t sleep properly, my hands and legs start shaking in the middle of the night.”

Yet, the parents left their two daughters – aged 15 and 11 – behind and travelled to Delhi. “I keep thinking of them and feel anxious. I came here to tell the people in power that they are wrong. Has power blinded you? The students are protesting for mothers like me. They are sensitive. It was painful to see the police beat up those who shared my grief. If you can’t understand our pain, what is the point of your power? Bachchon pe itna zulm mat kariye [Please don’t punish our children so much].”

For Mani Ratnam, it is deja vu.

The idea of NEET was first conceptualised in 2010 and the union government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi believed that the introduction of NEET in 2016 would clean up the medical education system. It is safe to say that hasn’t how it has worked out a decade later.

Tamil Nadu was among the first states to oppose the imposition of NEET and even received a one-year exemption in 2016 – the chief minister was J Jayalalitha at the time. The state government believed that their own education system was robust enough and didn’t need an additional, centralised exam for medical admissions. It was even proved right in 2021 when Justice A.K Rajan Committee published its report on NEET.

The report found that NEET actually makes it more difficult for underprivileged children to secure admissions in medical colleges.

In 2010, just over 80 per cent of students from English medium schools were admitted to various medical colleges in Tamil Nadu. That number rose to 98.41 per cent in 2017. While Tamil medium students plummeted from almost 20 per cent to less than 2 per cent.

The student who saw this coming was Anitha – Mani Ratnam’s sister and a Dalit student from the village of Kuzhumur.

In August 2017, she approached the Supreme Court of India, demanding to carry forward the exemption from the previous year. However, the top court refused. On September 1, 2017, she died by suicide when nobody was at home. She was 17 years old.

“She was quite sure the exemption would continue for Tamil Nadu,” says Mani Ratnam. “She had proved herself in the state board exams and she appeared for NEET as an experience. Therefore, her numbers weren’t that great in the NEET exams. But when the Supreme Court verdict came in, her world came crashing down. The exam she had prepared for with all her effort wasn’t going to be counted.”

Her death triggered widespread protests across Tamil Nadu. Students poured into the streets with impromptu demonstrations and roadblocks. Some of them staged a hunger strike. The agitators burnt effigies of Modi. Hundreds of people were arrested. As Mani Ratnam stood at Jantar Mantar on July 20, 2026, the protests from September 2017 flashed before his eyes.

“I feel like the entire country is feeling what Tamil Nadu felt nine years ago,” he says. “In that sense, I am glad the issue has gone national. This is a fascist government, and it doesn’t want to provide equal opportunities to its students.”

It has been just over a month since Sana passed away. Jafar returned to Hyderabad from Kuwait and is exploring opportunities back home.

“I can’t leave my wife and daughters now,” he says. “We are too fragile and depressed. I have to find something here. But I am over 50 now, and it isn’t easy to find work at this age.”

They have moved out of Hyderabad and returned to their village. There was no way the family could continue living there after Sana’s death. It had begun to haunt them. While cleaning up her drawer, Habib-un-Nisaa says she went through Sana’s books. “She had studied so meticulously,” she says, her voice quivers. “But we have to find strength for the two daughters who are with us.”

Both the daughters have expressed the desire to become doctors. But it has been met with mixed feelings. “We don’t want to pressurise them at all,” Jafar says. “We have told them to do whatever they feel like. We are still processing the loss of Sana.”

A year after Anitha’s death, Mani Ratnam started a library in their village and named it after her. He needed to do something to process the death of his younger sister. “I wanted to honour her memory,” he says. “We conduct events and study centres for students from marginalised communities. We help them prepare for their exams.”

He helmed the library for eight years until he ran into financial troubles. Nine months ago, he handed it over to a trusted person and took up a job in Chennai, where he works as an administrator at a skill centre.

The state of Tamil Nadu hasn’t forgotten her either. In March 2023, the Ariyalur District Medical College – the district in which her village falls – named its auditorium after Anitha. In August 2023, the DMK party president MK Stalin said that the end of NEET would be the truest tribute to Anitha while his party staged a one-day hunger strike.

“It fills my heart to see her memory has been honoured,” Mani Ratnam says. “She fought against an unjust system, just like the students are fighting today. We won't forget them either.”

If you are suicidal or someone in distress please call Kiran, the national helpline, on 1800-599-0019 (24/7 toll free), or any of these helplines near you.