Modi Govt Treating Students Seeking Accountability as ‘Enemies of the Nation’: Sonia Gandhi

New Delhi: Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi on Friday made a generalization against the Modi government, saying that the students were demanding accountability and education reforms, but the Modi government responded to their courage with “cowardice and wanton cruelty, treating them as enemies of the nation and not as heirs of the future”. He accused the government of ruining India’s educational environment and claimed that the country’s students were calling the Modi regime’s bluff.

He emphasized that standing by students and protecting their future is a moral, political and constitutional duty.

“The student protests are a natural outcome of these interrelated forces: today’s bleak educational landscape that evokes only despair, and the Modi government’s peculiar arrogance and unwillingness to be accountable or constructive,” Gandhi wrote in his article titled ‘The collapse of an education system, the trauma of young India’ published in The Hindu magazine. he said.

He alleged that the ‘brutality’ inflicted on student protesters by police personnel working under the direct authority of the Union Home Minister was unprecedented for this regime.

“We all vividly remember how armed police and paramilitary forces destroyed college campuses during the Citizenship (Amendment) Act-National Register of Citizens protests in 2020. The unacceptable excesses against India’s women wrestlers can never be erased from our memories,” he said.

He alleged that the Modi government has not only degraded India’s educational landscape but has also made a habit of acting with “total impunity, extreme self-delusion and abject insensitivity”.

He noted that peaceful protests by students across India against the leak of exam papers and the general decline in the education system have gained momentum in recent weeks.

“Their demands were loud and clear: accountability and education reform from the Government of India. The Narendra Modi government responded to their courage with cowardice and wanton cruelty, treating them not as heirs of the future but as enemies of the nation,” he said.

The former Congress chief said that on July 20, 2026, which he described as an infamous day, Delhi Police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) tried to suppress them violently using lathicharges and tear gas.

Gandhi noted that many peaceful protesters were injured and even students who went home were not spared due to the indiscriminate use of batons by the police.

“The nation has seen some of the most depressing visuals of youths with their bodies injured by pellets, the use of which would undoubtedly have been approved by Union Home Minister Amit Shah himself,” his article said.

“The videos from that day are etched in our memories and have stirred our collective conscience. Only the government and its captive media are making up stories around this spontaneous wave of protests. It is time to say it loud and clear: Stop, these are our sons and daughters, our young men and women,” Gandhi said.

Gandhi accused the Modi government of routinely choosing violence over dialogue.

“From farmers to activists, the pattern is clear. But this week, even a government so insensitive that it set new standards of authoritarian rule hit a new low. Instead of reaching out with understanding to our future doctors and engineers, teachers and civil servants, entrepreneurs and nation-builders, it unleashed the repressive power of the state on them. This can neither be forgiven nor forgotten.” he said.

He noted that the government’s old ‘toolkit’ of labeling dissidents as anti-national was being repurposed to undermine student protests.

Gandhi said the Modi government had resorted to a bag of tricks to smear and peddle conspiracies when it should have been introspecting on the policies motivating the protests.

He stated that the first key issue is the Modi government’s withdrawal from public education. The Minister pointed out that he reduced the proportion of the total Budget spent on school education by 50 percent and higher education by 33 percent.

“Can anyone see the logic of such a ridiculous retreat? Over the last 12 years, the Modi government has closed nearly one lakh government schools while overseeing the opening of 43,000 private schools, a large number of which are run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which along with its affiliates luckily heads the largest network of private schools in India,” he said.

Gandhi said that due to the inaccessibility of high-quality, affordable public education, families in India are forced to spend out-of-pocket to educate their children.

“The total amount spent by parents on National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) exam coaching alone is as much as the Modi government’s total investment in public education,” the Congress MP said.

He argued that the acute despair of our students is a direct result of the privatization and commercialization of education.

Gandhi also said that the second issue was the gutting of India’s public examination system, which he claimed was undergoing processes of centralization, privatization and politicization.

He noted that the traditional practice of Universities and States creating their own exams to meet their unique needs has been replaced by centralized, National Testing Agency (NTA)-run exams such as the Common University Entrance Test (CUET).

“NTA itself is an unfortunate, chronically understaffed body that relies entirely on an army of private contractors to conduct its examinations. It is also well known that the drafters, translators and experts engaged by NTA are not renowned academics from India’s leading institutions but are mostly mediocre individuals with political connections,” he said.

Gandhi said the end result of this process has very serious consequences: 152 paper leaks have occurred across the country in the last 12 years; nine of these have been made by the NTA itself since its inception in 2017, Gandhi said.

The third problem is the difficulty of succeeding in India’s education system, he said, arguing that high-quality, well-paying job opportunities after graduation are rare today, in part due to the increasing monopolization of the economy.

“But the final nail in the coffin has been the Modi government’s consistent and deliberate policy of shirking responsibility and avoiding well-intentioned conversations on education,” Gandhi said.

He accused Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan of belittling accountability by openly rejecting the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education to strengthen the NTA just because it had Opposition members in it.

Despite these monumental failures, his reluctance to resign from office further inflamed public opinion, Gandhi said.