The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) cancelled examinations for the Civil Services (preliminary) held recently after allegations of question paper leak led to a massive outcry. The question papers were found floating over social media. Not that this is something new for the State which is, of late, experiencing yet another jugglery. In 2020, thousands of examinees appearing for the BPSC examination boycotted the test in Aurangabad, alleging a paper leak after finding the seals of the question papers already broken. In 2022 itself, the Bihar School Examination Board, the Madhyamik paper leak came to the surface when it was alleged that most of the questions from a series had gone viral on social media before the examination. 

In the wake of the cancellation of the Social Science examinations because of a paper leak in 2021, angry students went on a rampage on Patna’s roads vandalizing government and private properties. Bihar Fireman Paper examination 2022 was found to have leaked over mobile phones before the examination. 

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The Intermediate exam (2018) conducted by the BSEB across the State turned controversial as the biology question paper went viral on social media allegedly after a leak when the examinees were still writing the answers at their centres. In the same year, the Bihar Staff Selection Commission question papers went viral on social media. 

Amidst rumours of question leak, the preliminary examination for the recruitment of sub-inspectors, sergeants and assistant superintendents of police was conducted in 2019. 

In March 2017, Chairman Sudhir Kumar along with a senior IAS officer was arrested in connection with the Bihar Staff Selection Commission examination paper leak. However, IAS officers in the State came out in strong protest against the arrest of their colleague and met the then Governor with their grievances. 

The Bihar police arrested the owner of a coaching centre who was believed to be leading the gang that tried to leak question papers of NEET 2017.

Rajasthan Police arrested the mastermind from Bihar behind the Rajasthan PSC exam paper leak from the State in 2014. In the same year, the Special Task Force arrested an alleged key accused in the Madhya Pradesh PSC exam paper leak, from Bihar. In 2016, three persons from Bihar were arrested by Telangana CID in connection with the Medical Entrance Examination question paper leak case. Masterminds of NEET (2016) papers’ leak arrested from UP also happened to hail from Bihar. A claim by the Jharkhand police in 2018 that two students from Bihar circulated the leaked CBSE Class X Mathematics question papers on Whatsapp to examinees in Jharkhand added another dimension to the paper leak scandal stemming from Bihar. It was possible that Mr Nitish Kumar had woken up to the need to cleanse the Augean stables of education only when the toppers’ scandal in the Bihar Intermediate examination had rocked the entire academic world. The Chief Minister, himself an engineering graduate, was better placed to learn from the State’s +2 topper that “Prodikal Science” (Political Science) is a subject that deals with cooking. Mr Kumar, now back in the saddle with a more comfortable majority, is better placed to deal with the education Mafia that is on the rampage and making Bihar a rural desert without an apology for basic education. 

Back in 1999, Lalu Yadav’s daughter stood first in Patna University’s MBBS examination although she had failed to clear her medical entrance test. She scored zero on one of her entrance papers. However, Lalu had dismissed this as an upper caste conspiracy. 

In the same year, it was natural for the academic circle in Bihar to be stunned by the failure of the previous year’s State Secondary Board Examination topper ~ Vikas Kumar ~ to pass any subject in his Class XI test resulting in his expulsion from a reputed Delhi school. Their shock must have been greater as Vikas, according to the Principal of the Delhi school, was unable to speak a word of English. This distressing event naturally put a big question mark not only on the State Secondary Board’s yardstick for assessing the merit of its examinees but also on the State’s education system as a whole. 

In 2000, an IPS officer influenced the authorities of Magadh University in Bihar to enable his wife to secure a first-class first master’s degree although she sat for only one paper. On the basis of the fake degree, she was admitted to a law college and secured a teaching job in another before her studies were over. These episodes by the end of the twentieth century were proof of corruption and nepotism by ministers and bureaucrats who did much to reduce Bihar’s education system to a farce. In fact, it was Jaiprakash Yadav, who as education minister, had manipulated the Secondary Board results to declare Vikas the topper. Jaiprakash kept on absconding to avoid arrest for having made crores of rupees along with his education commissioner by selling fake B Ed degrees.

In the backdrop of rampant corruption and an environment of scams, it is futile to expect examinations and evaluations in a fairway. Degrees and diplomas of Bihar’s universities have lost value. Back in 1972, the biggest-ever racket in postgraduate examinations was unearthed in Bhagalpur and LN Mithila universities. The Centre superintendent of Munger College was charged with allowing unfair means at the PG examinations. An FIR was filed against the college principal and 150 students who were mostly from Haryana, Punjab and Delhi. 

Way back in the mid-1980s, a vigilance inquiry was ordered into the appointment racket in a large number of colleges in Bihar. The dishonest game, however, had begun much earlier and anyone who made a name in the political field was known to be founding a college. Many of them were revered names in the academic circuit. 

Now, the same dignitaries found cases of cheating, conspiracy, corruption and forgery slapped against their names under various sections of the IPC. Voluminous reports dealing with all 40 colleges were filed, recommending the removal of illegally appointed teachers. Many of those appointed had their marks sheets forged while some had bogus appointment letters. Many did not even have the minimum qualifying marks. Interestingly, most of the private enterprises had opened those institutions with a profit motive collecting donations from teachers for their appointments. 

Teachers’ associations have held out the carrot of political support in return for privileges that have nothing to do with the future of students. And if governments of all hues have caved in, it is largely because they have paid only lip service to the great cause of creating a powerful intellectual movement of social significance while campuses were being transformed into centres of sectarian politics. 

It is not difficult to guess that much the same thing happened when the teachers’ bodies extracted concessions from Jagannath Mishra in1988 that went far beyond the legitimate dues, and thousands of posts of professors and readers were up for grabs. It is a shame that the State University Grants Commission managed to “detect” the irregularities only when the UGC tightened the purse strings. 

The education and examination system in Bihar is in disarray. The State which boasted of the world-famous Nalanda University now has an education system rocking with corruption and goondaism. Merit is at a dis- count everywhere. An education Mafia is at work. Bachha Rai and Lalkeshwar Prasad were just the tips of the iceberg.

(The writer, a former Associate Professor, Department of English, Gurudas College, Kolkata, is presently with Rabindra Bharati University)