On Friday afternoon, a 17-year-old aspiring medical student from Tamil Nadu hanged herself at her home in Kuzhumur village of Ariyalur district. S Anitha, the daughter of a 60-year-old Dalit casual labourer, T Shanmugam, who worked in Tiruchi, she had failed to clear the newly introduced National Entrance cum Eligibility Test, made mandatory by the Central government for admission to medical courses.

As news of the suicide spread, people began pouring into Ariyalur. Protests by student unions and political parties erupted in several places across the state, including Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Ariyalur. On Saturday, members of the Students’ Federation of India, the Revolutionary Students and Youth Front held demonstrations in Chennai. The police have detained some of the protestors, ANI reported.

“We have been lobbying for Tamil Nadu to be exempted from NEET for the past four months, along with Anitha,” said Ilayaraja of the Tamil Nadu Students Front, who was in Ariyalur for Anitha’s funeral. “The state and central governments have cheated the students. If the students studying under the state board felt they had any chance to compete with central board students for NEET, there would have been no suicide.”

Contested test

From 2017, the central government has made NEET compulsory for students across all states and education boards. In Tamil Nadu, medical admissions were given on the basis of marks scored in Class 12 examination conducted by the state education board. But NEET was prepared by the Central Board of Secondary Education, based on its own syllabus, which differed greatly from Tamil Nadu board’s syllabus. For this reason, the Tamil Nadu government had been opposing the examination, stating that a common entrance test would harm the prospects of state board students.

On June 23, Tamil Nadu reserved 85% of its medical seats for state board candidates. But on July 14, the Madras High Court struck down this order. On August 14, the state sent an ordinance to the Union Home Ministry seeking exemption from NEET for undergraduate medical courses for a year. This came after Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that if Tamil Nadu took the ordinance route to seek a one year exemption, the government would be willing to oblige.

However, many candidates who had been preparing for NEET for over a year were upset with this decision to exempt Tamil Nadu. These candidates, reportedly from both central and state boards, moved the Supreme Court, asking that admission to medical courses be given only on the basis of the NEET score. They were represented by senior advocate Nalini Chidambaram.

On August 17, Anitha pleaded as one of the respondents in the case. Anitha had scored 1,176 marks out of 1,200 in her state board examination, but managed 86 out of 700 in NEET, conducted in May this year.

“I don’t know what NEET is, and my father who has done his best to give me a good education, cannot afford NEET coaching classes,” she had reportedly said.

No exemption

But the Supreme Court refused to exempt the students of Tamil Nadu from NEET. “When the entire state was demanding exemption from NEET, the Government of India adamantly refused to understand the reality in Tamil Nadu,” said Prince Gajendra Babu, an educationist who impleaded in the case along with Anitha. He too was in Ariyalur on Saturday, attending the funeral. “The government failed to recognise that it is an issue concerning children.”

Anitha was offered a seat to study aeronautical engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology or take an undergraduate course in veterinary science at Veterinary College and Research Institute, Orathanadu, according to The New Indian Express. “But I still aspire to become a doctor,” she had responded.

Icon for anti-NEET struggle?

In the Supreme Court, impleading along with Anitha, under the guidance of a doctor from Tiruchi who did not want to be named, were five other students. Another respondent was S Mahesh, a doctor from Dindigul, whose son too was a state board student and hardly had a month to prepare for NEET after the state board exam was held in March.

“The government made false promises and did not give us justice,” said Mahesh. “While applying to deemed universities may be an option for some, many of the economically backward families will not be able to do so.”

Anitha’s sudden death has left many in the state shocked, and sparked protests against NEET. The hashtags #RIPAnitha, #Anithasuicide and #NEETkilledAnitha trended on Twitter for more than 24 hours after her death.

“Anita was yet to complete 18 years of age,” said Babu. “She has become the icon for the struggle against NEET and against commercialisation [of education].”