Kolkata: Ramping up penalties will not, by itself, curb irregularities born out of deep-seated flaws in the education system, All India Students’ Association (AISA) president Neha Bora said in Kolkata on Tuesday.
Bora, who was in the city on a two-day visit, had earlier joined social activist Sonam Wangchuk in a 23-day hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, protesting the NEET paper leak and demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Addressing reporters, Bora described irregularities in education as a “systematic problem” that cannot be solved through punishment alone.
The AISA chief had also taken part in the ongoing student protest against an alleged recruitment scam in Jharkhand, where the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) is in power. She faced an ‘ink attack’ during the protest in Ranchi and called for greater unity among anti-BJP political forces in handling student movements.
Bora said the government’s new anti-paper leak law mainly deals with what happens after an examination paper is leaked, while failing to address the structural problems that allow such incidents to occur, as reported by The New Indian Express.
Parliament passed the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, last month. It introduces stricter jail terms of five to 10 years and fines of up to Rs 50 lakh for individuals involved in examination paper leaks.
The bill was brought by the government in response to student protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), with support from Left student organisations such as AISA and SFI, at Jantar Mantar.
Bora, who was attacked with ink during the Jharkhand protest, cautioned that opposition and non-BJP parties would be unable to mount a credible political challenge to the BJP and RSS if, once in power, they dealt with student protests in the same repressive or dismissive manner as the governments they currently criticise. “If they do not do that, they will face the same fate as the BJP,” she warned.
For the AISA chief, the real import of the agitation went beyond the resignation of a minister; it lay in proving that those holding office in democratic institutions could still be made answerable to the people.
“After years of democratic and electoral institutions being weakened one after another, such movements could revive the fight to restore them and bring hope back to the country,” she said.
She also attacked what she called the growing centralisation of education, arguing that this trend was opening the door to greater privatisation.
In her view, the National Education Policy should be rolled back to the extent that it pushes centralisation and deepens inequalities among students.
At a later programme at the Rammohan Library, Bora, who is originally from Uttarakhand, reflected on her ties to West Bengal, saying the state had helped her move away from right-wing politics.
She had spent her 10th, 11th and 12th standard years in north Bengal, where her father, an Army man, was posted.
“I could have missed the Naxalite leader Charu Majumder, poems of Pablo Neruda and works of Arundhuti Roy if I was not in Bengal, which had taught me how distance myself from the rightists. I have started my journey in Left politics later,” she said.
The event also saw addresses by leaders of the SFI and DSO, and by Dr Debashis Halder, a key figure in the R G Kar Hospital rape-and-murder protest movement. During the programme, the SFI gifted Bora a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore.
“I could have missed the Naxalite leader Charu Majumder, poems of Pablo Neruda and works of Arundhuti Roy if I was not in Bengal, which had taught me how distance myself from the rightists. I have started my journey in Left politics later,” she said.
Leaders of the SFI and DSO, besides Dr Debashis Halder, a key figure in the R G Kar Hospital rape and murder protest movement, also spoke at the event. The SFI presented Bora with a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore on the occasion.
