The curious case of Tamil Nadu’s opposition to NEET

Tamil Nadu is the only state that is opposing NEET and the real reasons are not what are available in the public domain.

The curious case of Tamil Nadu's opposition to NEET
The curious case of Tamil Nadu's opposition to NEET

This is a translation of a Tamil article that appeared at

The death of Anitha, a 12th std topper of TN, is an irreparable loss. Her death, supposedly was because her protest for her right (to get medical admission) was not successful. Before we conclude based on the one-sided news that is doing rounds that the NEET is the reason for her unfortunate death, you must all read the info below. By this you can prevent another loss of a young life.

There are 10 questions / issues I place before you.

The Supreme Court has opined that the uncontrolled way in which Management fees / donation were collected, quality medical service was suffering.

  1. She scored 1176 in her 12th exam but what was her score in the NEET exam?
  2. Political parties who are now making a political issue out of her death, were silent when colleges like PSG / SRM / Meenakshi sold medical seats at crores per seat.
  3. The mainstream media who are talking about moral issues now were silent on the act of the above colleges.
  4. Assuming that students are right in opposing NEET, why did colleges like SRM approach the High Court?
  5. Is it a fact that NEET deprives social justice to the under privileged?
  6. What is the stand of other states on NEET? Why are there no protests against NEET in states other than TN?
  7. What is the real motive of political parties on the issue of NEET?
  8. What should the education department do now?
  9. When the High Court upheld NEET, none including the political parties raised any question?
  10. When and how did NEET become an issue?

This my independent detailed response on the above:

  1. The girl who scored  1176 out of 1200 in her 12th, i.e., 96% in the 12th Class, could score only 96 out of 720. Why this unfortunate situation? When it was announced that in the NEET exam, 55% marks shall be for lessons that were part of class 11 syllabus and 45% marks for those that were part of class 12, what were the reasons for this girl scoring such low marks in NEET? Did the fact that she studied in a government school affect her chances of scoring well in NEET? That is certainly not what the picture is. She studied in a private school called Raja Vignesh. It is a very well-known fact that very few schools in TN, conduct proper lessons in class 11. I leave the rest to your judgement.
  2. Are the political parties in TN clean? Coming to the ownership patterns in TN educational institutions, Vijayakant’s brother in-law Pachamuthu is the founder of SRM University. PMK’s (Political party in TN) Ramdass owns a medical college. The ownership of major stakes at Dr. MGR University is fairly evident. It may be surprising that one political party is still not named. They are just as corrupt as the every other party and starting from Jagath Rakshagan, every important functionary in DMK owns a medical college.
  3. PSG College in Coimbatore charges ₹75 lakh, Meenakshi ₹60 lakh for a medical seat. SRM rates are very public and therefore there is no need to reiterate it. Why is it then that no MSM channel discussed this in their debates? Why then is the communist party, the so called “Hundi Party” silent? Was a cheque given to them to buy their silence?
  4. If we expect Puthiyathalaimurai TV to run some fact checks on the whole issue of NEET then we are in fool’s paradise, This channel is run by the son of SRM University’s founder Pachamuthu. Students opposing NEET is one aspect, but why did SRM go to the High Court against NEET? SRM did not fight against the NEET exam per se, but was worried about its sale of management quota medical seats at a higher rate if NEET was implemented. SRM went to court because it wanted exemption from NEET for itself. Similarly, other medical colleges also function as a cartel lobby (albeit covert) against NEET and approached the court to protect their own turf but lost the case. Their worry was that students qualifying through NEET would only pay ₹12 lakh for a seat whose going rate was a crore. This through the selling mechanism of these private colleges. Implementing NEET has direct impact on their business.
  5. There is planned campaign against truth. An example: Last year the allocation of medical seats was as follows: SC – 94, this year -135. Does this show that the SC / ST quota was affected by NEET? OC, last year – 168, this year 515. This is a classic case of people being misled / fooled on this issue. An attempt is being made to portray that all the 515 are brahmins / forward caste students. But the fact is that only 99 of the 515 are from the forward castes. With such statistics how is the claim that social justice is denied, justified?
  6. We (in Tamil Nadu) who fought for Dravidam (Dravid country), later started with anti-Hindi agitation and are now against NEET. Why then is there no opposition in Kerala, Andhra, Karnataka, and Telangana which were considered as part of Dravid (country)? The reason is simple; the talk of Dravidam was to indulge in politics and spread divisive feelings among the people in these states. But the historical truth is that even when EVR Periyar was alive, the other southern states did not accept the concept of Dravid country. Using Tamil only for political reasons, Tamilians opposed Hindi, but became slaves to English and this was then used by some for their political purposes. But all states including Kerala did not oppose Hindi. How many know about Navodhaya, E- vidyalayas? Why did Tamil Nadu not accept CBSE curriculum provided by the Centre at very low cost? Then again, is it that only DMK functionaries alone can run CBSE schools?
  7. Political parties in TN are concerned that their relatives, party men and donors would be affected and that is the reason they oppose NEET vehemently. For example: There is a quota for M.K.Stalin in PSG. Vaiko has a seat in Jipmer (for which few lakhs are due to him)
  8. At least from this academic year – during the school vacations, the Govt should collaborate with private training institutes, to conduct short term crash courses for the poor students in Govt schools with state curriculum.
  9. Finally, our students who do not get admission in India go to countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Russia to pursue medical education, as it is cheaper than the Management quota seats. These students can write an exam conducted by the MCI to practice medicine. Is this acceptable?  When questions were raised about the quality of medical service from these doctors, the Congress (UPA) had no option but to introduce the NEET exam. The BJP Govt is just continuing the same. That is why we cannot question the Supreme Court’s decision which is right. The Supreme Court has opined that the uncontrolled way in which Management fees / donation were collected, quality medical service was suffering. Can one expect to get quality medical service from such doctors (who get admitted into medical colleges because of money power)

With the above information, slogans that read “Down with Modi”, “No to NEET”, etc are nothing but complaints of rank opportunists.



  1. Thank you for publishing this lucid note. Without this I was unable to see any logical reason for strong objection to NEET. Rather NEET should be welcome as it will lead to single uniform, standardised entrance test.

  2. Thank you for publishing this report. I was unable to see the logic in raising strong objections to NEET. Rather it should be welcome as it will lead to a single uniform standard entrance test.

  3. Next year govt should implement entrance exam for engineering. In anna university top 3 colleges, students from cbse don’t get admission though they clear jee mains. State board students who got negative marks in jee got admission in anna university top 3 colleges. Did anybody raise their voice to these issues.

  4. The failure of Anitha in NEET exams is a symbolic of the rotten education system in Tamilnadu & elsewhere in India. The young girl appears to be hardworking time, did not have proper guidance on the NEET exam preparation methodology. Moreover, she did not have the proper environment to sustain her failures & tell her some “soup” stories to keep her alive for next year NEET exams.
    Instead all parties are blaming NEET, which is incorrect. Infact historically all political parties in India are parasites i.e. thriving on dead bodies/dead issues / dead matters/dead mosquitoes.
    NEET has atleast taken away the abusive admission power of the politicians & rogue colleges / universities.

  5. Christian forces are behind all this….
    Because they only will be affected more if people switch to CBSE because they own a lot of government aided schools… St.this and St.that school etc..
    You can spot seeman, Madurai Kamaraj University students (vc is a convert Christian) , karumatur (Christian college) , loyala students (Christian I believe) and a lot of others…
    I really don’t know how other students don’t have the mind to think…
    How they are easily brain washed in the name of students….

  6. Opps sorry, saw this at the beginning of the article “This is a translation of a Tamil article that appeared at”. Please disregard my previous comment. Please make the reference bolder or something, so its more visible on the page.

  7. As Ram mentioned, its a translations of the original Tamil version of it. I can see the link to the actual source at the bottom of the article which just completely gets hidden in the clutter. I think it would be better to credit the source of this article or similar at the very beginning so people know its a translation and not an original from this Author. So, please add a disclaimer or something stating that this is a translation of an original document in the start of the article rather.

  8. Its a sad thing that this kid had to die. I condone anyone going for suicide as a solution for their problems. If you guts to kill yourself, then you have the ability to handle anything to move forward from your current situation.

    About the authors responses.
    1. Her scores being really low. That’s a really good point. Students from an Indian school system primarily focus on rote learning and that’s not very helpful in the long run. As she did her 11th and 12th from a private school. Surely she and the school would have known about NEET exams and she should have prepared for it. Seems not the case from the score she had. Or she was over confident going for NEET exams based on the academic scores thinking she should be able to handle it reasonably well. Then again, there is the problem of syllabus under which students study, like State board, CBSE, ICSE etc., Each one of them have a vast difference at the level the student learns at school. So, NEET at all India level means, its going to be based on a national level syllabus which could be CBSE most probably I think. I am not saying its bad, as IIT’s JEE exams are all India level and you prepare specifically for it. It does not matter what syllabus you come from, as long as your able to perform well to get admissions into those schools based on your rank in all India level. I presume NEET is trying to do the same and stream line medical education across India.

    I understand, that political parties and other special interest groups especially from Tamil Nadu have taken interest to object against NEET to keep their business going as usual without it putting up various conditions and restrictions thus leading from them to loot money in the name of education. These kind of inconsistency needs to be dealt with harshly and stream lined across India especially with education if India is going to be a more developed nation where we produce proper educated students rather than generating students with mediocre or no knowledge at all because they could buy the education away from those institutions which basically sell them for a price.

    About Hindi opposition etc., Hindi is not a national language though its been showed all across India, it has been forced by the Central Govt to states which is absurd. I read a message few days back where a Hindi speaking person was talking about meeting South Indians in the US where they for parties sometimes and turns out this HIndi speaking person was the odd one out as the others usually talked in one of the South Indian languages though there could all converse in English so this person could also be part of the conversation. They persisted once in a while for the Hindi speaking person to learn maybe Tamil so she could also be more involved in their conversations which she was missing. Her conclusion was, why should I learn Tamil as I do not have any purpose of it other than to keep up with my friends who I meet once in a while. The same goes to a Tamil learning Hindi, why would I want to learn Hindi, where I don’t have any use of it in my locality for any reason within the state one lives primarily all their life. I could use it in Delhi, provided I go or move to Delhi, but for a common person from a location where there is no need for Hindi, there is no need for it to be showed in the throats just because some politician or some bureaucrat came with the idea of it.

  9. Excellent analysis of the NEET issue in TN. Besides what is said above this girls family wouod have been promised by the parties more than 7 lakhs whch they got. Therefore they returned the cash. The suicide is also in question it may be like the case in Hyderabad where they accused a dalit killed himself. Which was not so. The ploy and act looks similar. Political gimmickery.


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