Standing amidst the sea of angry demonstrators and slogans echoing through Jantar Mantar, S. Manirathnam carried the quiet gravity of a family whose life was altered forever by India's medical entrance examination system.The brother of S. Anitha, a 17-year-old Dalit student whose death by suicide nine years ago turned her into the enduring face of Tamil Nadu’s fight against the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), traveled from Ariyalur to the national capital to join the student protest and align his sister's memory with the growing nationwide agitation against examination irregularities and systemic problems in the education system. “NEET has destroyed my family,” Manirathnam told The Quint at the protest site. “Anitha wanted to become a doctor because she had seen the suffering caused by the lack of medical care after our mother passed away. She did not prepare specifically for NEET, she focused on her state board exams. One small mistake in this system affects 25 lakh people's dreams.”The ongoing demonstrations at Jantar Mantar, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), were sparked by the fallout of the 2026 NEET-UG paper leak controversy.The cancellation of the initial exam and subsequent administrative delays threw over two million aspirants into turmoil. The emotional toll has been devastating, multiple alleged student suicides reported across several states in the wake of the exam cancellation and re-test uncertainty have turned what began as an administrative grievance into a national crisis over student welfare.Protesters in New Delhi are demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, accountability from the National Testing Agency (NTA), compensation for the families of those students who died by suicide and a complete structural overhaul of competitive examinations.The current outcry reopens deep historical wounds over the imposition of NEET across India. Implemented nationwide to create a unified medical entrance mechanism, the single-window exam faced immediate and fierce resistance, particularly in southern states like Tamil Nadu.Critics and state lawmakers argued that a standardised exam based predominantly on the central CBSE curriculum systematically disadvantaged rural, state-board, and economically underprivileged students who could not afford expensive private coaching centres. For Tamil Nadu, where medical admissions had historically been granted based on Class 12 state board merit, the shift was seen as an encroachment on state autonomy and an equitable education framework.No case illustrated this systemic gap more starkly than that of S. Anitha.A high-achieving Dalit student from Ariyalur district raised by her father, a daily-wage laborer, after her mother died when she was just seven years old, Anitha scored 1,176 out of 1,200 marks in her Class 12 state board examinations in 2017. Her medical cut-off score was 196.75 out of 200; marks that would have comfortably secured her a medical seat under Tamil Nadu's earlier admission system.However, unable to secure a seat through the newly mandated NEET cutoff, she spearheaded the legal fight against the exam, traveling to the Supreme Court as a petitioner to seek an exemption for Tamil Nadu students. Days after the apex court dismissed the state's plea, on September 1, 2017, 17-year-old Anitha died by suicide, sparking widespread protests across South India and establishing her as the first victim of the exam's mandatory enforcement in the state.Recalling the tragedy, Manirathnam spoke of the void left in their household. “Anitha was the only girl in my house. My mother passed away when Anitha was just seven years old, and my father worked in Trichy Gandhi Market. Anitha scored 1,176 out of 1,200, her marks were enough to get into a top medical college in Tamil Nadu under the state board system. But when the Union Government imposed NEET, she protested in the street and filed a case in the Supreme Court. The court didn't give her justice.”Addressing the recent allegations of paper leaks, and centre allocation flaws, he added, “Paper leaks, impersonation, centre allocation issues, repeaters, it is a full-and-full failure model. Resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan is just step one. That is not enough. We want NEET to be banned and exemptions granted because NEET is against marginalised people, village-level students, and economically weaker sections.”What began at Jantar Mantar as a localised protest against paper leaks and alleged failures of the education system has now catalysed broader demonstrations in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra.Students, activists, and political parties across multiple states are increasingly uniting against what they describe as systemic flaws in the national education framework.