Panaji: Philosopher-author Acharya Prashant urged educationist Sonam Wangchuk to end his 18-day fast and called for dialogue with the government as he warned the NEET paper leak and ensuing student protests reflect a deeper crisis in India’s education system.
Speaking in Goa, Acharya Prashant said the scandal — coupled with student suicides — has broken trust among millions of applicants and their families, and that recurring examination leaks have eroded faith in merit and hard work. “Twenty-two lakh applicants means twenty-two lakh families,” he said, adding that many students sacrifice years of childhood and that a leaked paper destroys more than an exam; it destroys trust.
He praised Wangchuk’s record of education work in Ladakh and appealed to him to preserve his life for the larger cause. “You can serve India far more by staying alive,” Acharya Prashant said, urging the government to enter into a meaningful dialogue rather than expecting respected citizens to stake their lives to be heard.
Acharya Prashant described the leak as a product of a market that values ranks above lives, arguing that brokers and buyers emerge where a single qualification is inflated in value. He said the value system underpinning the crisis is formed at home and in communities, and asked parents when they transformed a child into an “entrance-exam project.”
He criticised educators for narrowing education to a race for livelihood rather than a formation of character, calling for “a mass education of the self” alongside vocational reforms. While supporting demands for systemic reform and accountability, he warned that external changes will be insufficient unless individuals address internal dishonesty. “A system cannot be honest if the people who build it are dishonest within,” he said.
Acharya Prashant, an IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus and founder of the PrashantAdvait Foundation, highlighted the need for both administrative action and deeper cultural change to prevent future tragedies. He has recently engaged audiences in the UK on education and consciousness and was named on the Watkins 2026 list of influential living thinkers.
(Inputs from IANS)