1. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
“Corruption in Education” with the context of
Chetan Bhagat’s Revolution 2020
NanditabaChudasama
Semester-4
Enrollment no : 3069206420200006
Roll no : 14
Batch : 2020-2022
S.B Gardi Department of English Bhavnagar
University
2. Chetan Baghat, a rising star in the contemporary
modern Indian literature, is a multitalented
personality. He is a novelist, columnist, public
speaker and a screenplay writer. His notable
works include
📖Five Point Someone,
📖The 3 Mistakes of My Life
📖2 States
📖400 Days
📖One Arranged Murder
He was included in Time magazine's list of
World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010.
Introduction
3. Revolution 2020 is the story of three friends from Varanasi. The life story is
predictably a love story or rather a love triangle involving Gopal and
childhood friends Raghav and Arti. The three protagonists belong to
different classes. Gopal is poor, Raghav is middle class while Arti is well off.
The novel is just a love story as while speaking to India Real Time (IRT)
Bhagat himself states,
“But, frankly, when you read the book you see its not so political. Its still
80% love story and the rest is about the issues I am talking about”.
Revolution 2020‟ is something that is very
close to my heart…”
But if you focus on the background, activities, and all other minor aspects,
you will find that the story starts from corruption though it seems to be a
joke or students‟ hobby.
Overview of the Story
4. The Ganga Tech, represented as one of the biggest institutions and predictably to
be a well reputed university, is founded on corruption and disputed land. The land
on which it is situated is usurped forcefully and illegally from Ghanshyam, Gopal’s
uncle, though it is a justification to him. Here everyone waits for his opportunity.
Not only the capitalists but the professionals are also second to none to cash their
chance. In the initial procedure to establish the Ganga Tech they had to grease
the different palms at every step.
Corruption in the novel
Teachers are thought greater and more important than everyone in our
society. Kabirdas, a famous Hindi poet and social reformer, mentions the
teacher greater even than the God but now the system, from top to
bottom, has corrupted each and all. All the people, professionals or
capitalists, concerned with the education system focus on the money only
and forget their moral duty.
5. India’s education system is mired in corruption and a high rate of
teacher absenteeism in the country was a key factor for it according to
the new global study. The UNESCO’s International Institute of
Educational Planning study on corruption in education released recently
says that 25% teacher absenteeism in India is among the highest in the
world, second only after Uganda that has a higher rate. The global
average of teacher absenteeism is about 20%
In Bihar two of every five teachers were reported absent the figure in
UP was reported to be one-third of the total teachers. However in
states like Gujarat and Kerala the figure was lower than 15% the report
based on several small studies.
Another indictment of the sorry state of Indian education was the view
held by students that cheating in examinations is their traditional right.
In India universities cheating is now well-established.
Corruption in Education system in India – A
UNESCO Report
6. The Vyapam scam was an entrance examination, admission and
recruitment scam that was unearthed in the Indian state of Madhya
Pradesh in 2013.It involved scamsters including politicians, senior and
junior officials and businessmen systematically employing imposters to
write papers, manipulate exam hall seating arrangements and supply
forged answer sheets by bribing officials.The scam involved 13 different
exams conducted by Vyapam.
The Vyapam scam involved collusion among exam candidates,
government officials and middlemen: undeserving candidates
were offered high marks in the exams, in exchange for kickbacks.
The following tricks were used by those involved in the scam:
Impersonation
Copying
Manipulation of records and answer
sheets Leaking the answer key
Vyapam Scam
7. The mysterious deaths of people linked to Vyapam scam
triggered dark humour on various social media platforms
across India. People compared it to the fictional television
series Dexter and termed it as India's version of Game of
Thrones. The untimely and sudden death of a journalist
soon after interviewing the family members of another dead
accused was considered inauspicious. An online perception
was created that any sort of link to the scam could bring
trouble or even mysterious death.
Various hashtags such as #KhooniVyapam (Bloody
Vyapam), #killervyapamscam, #vyapam, #VyapamGenocide
Reactions on social
media
8. On 13 February 2017, the Supreme Court of India delivered an 83-
page judgement and cancelled the degrees of 634 doctors. The
court said:
The actions of the appellants are founded on unacceptable
behaviour and in complete breach of rule of law. Their actions
constitute acts of deceit...National character, in our considered
view, cannot be sacrificed for benefits - individual or societal...If
we desire to build a nation on the touchstone of ethics and
character, and if our determined goal is to build a nation where
only rule of law prevails, then we cannot accept the claim of the
appellants (students) for suggested societal gains (by allowing
them to keep the degrees on the condition of doing social service
free of cost for some years)..We have no difficulty in concluding in
Judgeme
nt
9. 📌Sharma, Arvind. “Corruption in Education System in Chetan
Bhagat’s Revolution 2020, Love, Ambition, Corruption.” International
Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL), 1
Jan. 2015.
📌Santoshi, Neeraj. “Mystery Vyapam Deaths Spark a Wave of Dark
Humour on Social Media.” Hindustan Times, 10 July 2015.
📌Mahapatra, Dhananjay. “Vyapam Scam: Supreme Court Cancels
Degrees of 634 Doctors.” The Times of India, 14 Feb. 2017.
References
10. 📌Das, Monalisa. “I Have Been Asked to Shut My
Mouth, but Work Will Go on- An Interview with the
Whistleblower Who Exposed Madhya Pradesh Vyapam
Scam.” The News Minute, 25 June 2014.
📌“A UNESCO Report.” Corruption in Education System
in India, https://www.azadindia.org/social-
issues/education-system-in-india.html.
References
