July 17, 2026

When Ministers Open Their Mouths: The Cost of Political Insensitivity

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2026-05-14 07:11:06

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

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Madan Dilawar, Rajasthan's Education Minister, did not need to say much. He just needed to say nothing. Instead, he chose to inform the nation that the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 was not a matter of great concern. In doing so, he accidentally told us everything we need to know about the political class that governs us.

Let us set the scene. Twenty-two point seven lakh students had just been told that the examination they spent two years preparing for was cancelled because the paper had been sold to cheats. Families that had spent anywhere between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 20 lakh on coaching, accommodation, and fees were staring at the wreckage of another academic year. Students in their third or fourth attempt were quietly calculating whether they were now too old to keep trying. And Madan Dilawar, the minister in whose state the leak originated, in whose state the police turned away the whistleblower, looked at all of this and decided it was not a big deal.

This is not an isolated lapse. It is a pattern so consistent across Indian politics that it barely registers anymore. When floods devastate villages, a minister holds a presser about infrastructure development. When a child dies in a government school mid-day meal tragedy, an official explains that the child probably had a pre-existing condition. The remarks are different. The instinct is identical: minimise, deflect, and refuse to feel.

Why does the Indian political class so routinely fail to register the human cost of disasters on their watch? Because a minister in India faces no meaningful accountability for what he says. There is no conduct code requiring him to resign for insulting the citizens he governs. His party will not discipline him unless the remark threatens electoral arithmetic. And even then, the standard response is a clarification, not a consequence.

There is also the matter of distance. Madan Dilawar's children are not preparing for NEET. Neither are the children of any cabinet minister, in all likelihood. When you have no skin in the game, it is easy to declare the game not a big deal.

Consider what the NEET journey actually looks like for the families Mr. Dilawar is addressing. A student typically spends two years after Class 12 in intensive preparation. Many relocate to coaching hubs like Kota or Sikar, paying Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh a year in fees alone. Parents take loans. Mothers forgo household expenses. Fathers work double shifts. The psychological pressure is severe and Kota's student suicide statistics are a grim annual reminder of it. All of this is staked on one examination, conducted one day a year. When that examination is cancelled because the state failed to protect its integrity, the loss is not just financial. It is a year of a young person's life and a family's deferred hope.

There is a specific cruelty to Dilawar's remark that goes beyond insensitivity. Rajasthan is the state where the leak chain was concentrated. The guess paper circulated in Sikar. The whistleblower who could have stopped all of this walked into a Rajasthan police station and was turned away. The state's own machinery, presided over by the government of which Mr. Dilawar is a part, either failed spectacularly or looked the other way. For the minister of that state to then tell affected students that their anguish is not a big concern is an insult delivered by the very hand that failed them.

This points to a reform that is long overdue: a statutory code of ministerial conduct governing public statements. India has codes of conduct for election campaigns, government servants, judges, and the bar. Yet ministers, who wield the most power over citizens' daily lives, operate under no enforceable standard of public communication. A minister can trivialise any crisis and face no formal consequence beyond public outrage, which fades in a news cycle. The proposed code need not be draconian. Its core principle should be simple: a minister must not publicly minimise a crisis affecting citizens in his charge, nor make statements that demean those his government has failed. Violations should attract formal censure and a pattern of violations should be grounds for removal.

Mr. Dilawar's remark will be forgotten in a week. The students whose futures were derailed by this scandal will carry it far longer. They are required to perform, comply, and compete in systems the state cannot be bothered to protect. And when those systems fail, they are told by the men who run them that it is really not such a big deal.

It is time that someone told the ministers: it is.