Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) aspirants staged a protest near Parliament House on Monday demanding compensation in the form of additional attempts, which they say they lost due to a discriminatory Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) paper during the preliminary examination.
The student protesters were later detained and taken to the Parliament Street police station. A similar protest was held on March 3.
“Introduced in 2011, the CSAT proved to be discriminatory towards students from the rural and regional language background. The government’s Nigvekar Committee and UPSC’s annual report back this claim. But in spite of its controversial nature, the CSAT was not removed until April 2015, and that too after massive protests,” said Anupama Karthik, an aspirant from Hyderabad. “We have been appealing to the government since the last six months, but we haven’t received anything besides assurance,” Ms. Karthik added.
The protesters, meanwhile, chose to clarify that they were not asking for a job or reservation.
‘We are just asking for an opportunity to appear in the exam again,” said Jayprakash Bajpai from Uttar Pradesh.
He said: “I studied at the government school in my village and started learning English only in Class VI. But, the CSAT pitted me against aspirants who had studied in convent schools all their lives. The CSAT was brought in to systematically exclude rural Indian students like me who are talented and hard-working. Our only fault is that we can not speak fluent English. We have lost five years and are out of the exam system. Don’t we deserve another chance to pursue our dream, or are the aspirations of rural youth not a priority for the government?”
Protesters upset over the alleged discriminatory Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) paper
