1. India has witnessed the NEET paper-leak controversy, allegations of exam irregularities, and now the CBSE OSM row involving answer-sheet mismatches, missing pages and evaluation concerns. What do you think is India’s biggest education challenge?

There’s a multi-pronged challenge. On one hand, the privatisation of education has placed an unfair burden on students who don’t come from privilege and has made access to education much harder than before. At the same time, this privatisation has not been accompanied by the creation of standards that are fit for industry.

What that means is that students are paying exorbitant tuition, coaching, and university fees, yet many are still unable to secure jobs because they feel their acquired skills are often disconnected from what employers require. This places enormous pressure on the limited number of government jobs that are available and creates fierce competition.

If I had to describe the biggest challenge in one word, it would be mismanagement. Government institutions are underfunded and poorly managed, while even some of our premier institutes like the IITs and IIMs face a crisis of credibility. The government has focused on creating buildings and announcing schemes, but not on building the educational infrastructure necessary for India to compete globally.

2. The government’s response to many education challenges has increasingly relied on centralisation and technology. Is India mistaking digitisation for reform?

The knee-jerk/ major reaction whenever a crisis emerges is the announcement of a new flagship scheme or a major technological reform. After the NEET paper leak controversy, the solution proposed was computer-based testing. But where is the digital public infrastructure required to conduct such examinations for more than 20 lakh students?

How do we prevent normalisation errors? How do we ensure equal access? How do we avoid creating a fresh cycle of litigation?

The same concerns apply to the rollout of CBSE’s online marking system. There have been allegations regarding vendors, scanning procedures and quality-control mechanisms. Technology cannot substitute for institutional capacity. Without oversight, accountability, and robust implementation standards, digitisation simply shifts existing problems into a new form rather than solving them.

Moreover, there is a complete lack of accountability when things go wrong. Whenever there is a paper leak or a major procedural lapse, a bureaucrat is transferred. After the 2024 NEET controversy, for instance, the head of the NTA was moved out. But accountability in a democracy should not end with the transfer of officials.

In politics, accountability begins at the top, not at the bottom. Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned as a Railway minister after a railway accident because he believed leadership required accepting responsibility for institutional failures. The education minister should resign not only because there is a question on his integrity and questions of corruption, but because there is a big question on his competence. Because clearly, he cannot conduct any exam in the country. He’s allowing the education sector to rot from within.

3. In your view, what threshold of reliability should public institutions be held to before rolling out large-scale reforms?

I think the question should not be limited to reliability alone. We have already had expert committees, parliamentary discussions and policy recommendations examining many of these issues. For example, various committees have looked at reforming the National Testing Agency (NTA) and improving examination processes. The challenge is not necessarily the absence of recommendations; it is the absence of institutional mechanisms that ensure those recommendations are implemented properly.

What we need are standards that are not designed around individual examinations or individual crises but around processes. Those processes should ensure that experts in education, assessment and public policy have a meaningful role in decision-making. In the educational field, these decision-making processes cannot merely be left to bureaucrats who are transferred from one department to another and who may not have an understanding of the complexity of a particular field or the challenges of implementing a reform.

4. Education affects millions of families, yet it rarely occupies the centre of political discourse in the way inflation, unemployment or national security do. Why is that? Why do you think education struggles to become a sustained political issue?

I think there is a level of complacency that has allowed us to reach the state of affairs we are in today. There was a time when the condition of public universities was not only a matter of pride but also a matter of concern. My grandfather was the Chancellor of Mumbai University and the principal of Government Law College, and even from the stories I have heard about that era, there was a degree of independence granted to educationists that is largely missing today. Those who understood education were given the freedom to make decisions they believed were best for their students, and that autonomy was the bedrock upon which institutions such as Mumbai University and Pune University built their reputations.

Unfortunately, the politicisation of universities, the erosion of academic freedom and the stifling of dissent have fundamentally altered that landscape. The problem is not simply criticism of the government being discouraged; it is a broader unwillingness to tolerate disagreement with government policies. Educational reforms are increasingly rolled out through a top-down approach, with little consultation with students, teachers, or institutions themselves.

The National Education Policy is a good example. I am not suggesting that the policy should be discarded entirely. In many respects, it is a comprehensive and reform-oriented document. However, its implementation has been hampered by the government’s inability to take stakeholders into confidence. Educational reforms succeed only when students, teachers, and institutions feel they are participants in the process rather than passive recipients of it.

So I think the crisis runs deeper than a lack of political will. It reflects a larger erosion of the freedoms that are essential for quality academic production. Universities thrive when there is a culture of questioning, debate, and intellectual curiosity. Once that culture weakens, education gradually loses its place in public life and ceases to be treated as a political priority.

5. You studied abroad at both Columbia and Oxford Universities and have experienced educational systems both inside and outside India. Looking back, what differences stand out most—not necessarily in terms of resources, but in how institutions build trust, accountability, and student participation?

One of the first differences you notice is resources, and I do not think it is possible to dismiss that question. India often speaks about being a global leader and aspiring to be a Vishwaguru (world leader), but those ambitions must be reflected in our investment in education. For decades, expert committees have recommended increasing education expenditure to 6% of GDP, yet we continue to fall short of that target.

The reality is that education in India remains underfunded. That underinvestment affects everything from research and infrastructure to faculty recruitment and student support. It is one of the reasons many Indian institutions struggle to match the standards achieved by leading universities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

But beyond resources, the most significant difference is academic freedom. Universities are meant to be places where you learn how to think, not what to think. The moment governments begin dictating what students should think on campus, they undermine one of the fundamental purposes of higher education.

Whether you become a lawyer, journalist, doctor or engineer, success depends on your ability to question assumptions, analyse problems and think independently. Universities should cultivate those skills. Unfortunately, our education system remains heavily focused on examinations that reward memory rather than critical thinking. That emphasis may help students clear tests, but it does not necessarily prepare them for the challenges they will face later in life, and I think that is something that will cost us dearly in the years ahead.

6. The emergence of movements like the Cockroach Janta Party suggests that many young people feel traditional political institutions are not responding to their concerns. Do you see these protests as a reaction to specific incidents like NEET and OSM, or as evidence of a deeper disconnect between India’s political class and its students?

It is important to remember that the Cockroach Janta Party was not born primarily out of the NEET paper-leak controversy or concerns around examination management. It emerged in response to what many young people saw as an objectionable and deeply dismissive remark by the Chief Justice of India, comparing them to cockroaches. The movement was born out of anger at what they perceived as the casual dismissal of the hopes, frustrations, and anxieties of crores of young Indians.

That frustration extends far beyond a single controversy. It is reflected in the anger surrounding examination irregularities, but it is also tied to concerns about unemployment, insecurity, and the feeling that young people are being treated as disposable. There is a growing resentment among young Indians who feel that institutions are not accountable to them and that their concerns are not taken seriously.

What you are seeing on the streets today is, in many ways, an anti-establishment anger. It is not directed solely at the government; it is directed at the entire political class, including parties like my own in the opposition. Young people are demanding to be heard, and that demand cannot simply be dismissed as a reaction to one policy failure or one examination controversy. As members of the opposition, our responsibility is to listen to that anger, acknowledge it, and create space for it. If we respond in the same way that those in power have responded—by dismissing it or refusing to engage with it—we stand to lose the most

7. How does it feel to be an openly gay politician, especially when it’s not so common?

I entered politics because I remember a time when I genuinely believed it would be impossible to be openly queer and participate in public life in India. One of the first interviews I gave carried the headline that people often tell young LGBTQ+ Indians—that you cannot be queer and be in politics—and that needed to change.

For me, it is incredibly empowering to be the role model I wished I had while growing up. I am constantly grateful to the many young people who write to me and tell me that they find hope in my story or that my presence in public life gives them confidence about their own future.

At the same time, that visibility comes with responsibility. It means recognising that others may not have the same opportunities or privileges that I have had. It means continuing to advocate for people who may not feel safe enough to come out, and for those who continue to face discrimination because of their caste, class, religion, gender or sexuality. So while there is certainly a sense of pride, there is also an awareness that representation must be accompanied by responsibility. The goal is not simply to be visible, but to help create pathways for others who come after you.