6 things that made 2024 a year of upsets for India: RG Kar, NEET and more

The year that went by was volatile for India in several respects. There were the high-stakes Lok Sabha elections, as well as several assembly polls. Manipur continued to burn in ethnic strife, while corruption allegations against the Adani Group rocked the Parliament.

However, certain incidents caused surprise upsets in the country. While the NEET-UG exam leaks sent students on the protest path, sparking political showdowns, the RG rape-murder case in “safe” Kolkata brought doctors and common people out on the streets with slogans on their lips.

Here are some of the major events that shook India in 2024.

1. When pollsters missed the picture, completely

2024 was the year when exit polls lost all credibility in India. The predictions made for the summer general elections by opinion surveys of mainstream media outlets were way off the mark — bringing one pollster, Pradeep Gupta, to tears on live TV — and they could not salvage much of their pride in the assembly elections later in the year either.

To be fair, the exit polls got one thing right — that the BJP government led by Narendra Modi would be back at the Centre. But that’s where it ended.

While most pollsters predicted that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would bag more than 350 seats, some took it up a notch higher to cross 400 — reinforcing the BJP’s pre-poll slogan of “Ab ki baar char-sau paar” (We’ll cross 400 this time).

The Opposition, which came together under the umbrella of the INDIA bloc, was left with 120–160 seats, prompting the latter to dub the exit polls as “bogus” and having a pro-BJP agenda.

Also read: As general elections showed, Indian media has lost the ability to read the ground

In a huge face loss for the pollsters, the NDA managed to scramble only 293 seats together, with the BJP bagging 240 — short of the majority mark — putting it at the mercy of two very unpredictable partners, the Chandrababu Naidu-led TDP and Nitish Kumar-led JD(U).

The INDIA bloc performed much better than predicted — or even expected — securing 234 seats, 99 of which were won by the Congress. And finally, after 10 years, the “Opposition” was formally back in the Parliament, with an NDA government (not solely BJP) at the Centre.

Four months later, the exit polls got it wrong all over again — this time for the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls. While they gave a clear majority to the Congress in Haryana and only an edge to the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP formed the government in Haryana for a record third consecutive term, while the NC-Congress alliance comfortably came to power in J-K.

And again, in November, the pollsters completed a hat trick of failing to read the people’s pulse by predicting a hung verdict in both Maharashtra and Jharkhand, or at best an edge to the NDA for both. In reality, both states threw up a decisive verdict, with the Mahayuti (NDA) scoring a landslide win in Maharashtra and the INDIA bloc led by JMM returning to power in Jharkhand.

2. When 'safe city' Kolkata had a Nirbhaya moment

In December 2023, Kolkata bagged the “safest city in India” tag for the third consecutive year as the National Crime Records Bureau released its annual report on crime in India for 2022. And then, in August this year, came the shocker.

On August 9, a young post-graduate trainee was brutally raped and murdered at the state-run RG Kar Medical College Hospital while on night duty, triggering protests all across the city, the state, and several parts of the country by junior doctors and the civil society alike.

While Kolkata Police arrested a civic volunteer, Sanjay Roy, for the horrendous crime within 24 hours, several procedural lapses were flagged by concerned citizens and later drew flak from the Supreme Court that took up the case suo motu.

At the same time, rumours spread thick and fast regarding almost everything, from the contents of the autopsy report to destruction of evidence to a possible racket being run by the then principal of the medical college, Sandip Ghosh. As allegations of a cover-up attempt were raised against the authorities, the then officer in charge of the police station concerned (Tala), Abhijit Mondal, was also arrested along with Ghosh.

Also read: Bengal bypolls: RG Kar rape-murder has zero impact on TMC vote bank

Before that, on August 27, protesters threatening to march to Nabanna, the seat of the West Bengal government, held the city to ransom, clashing with police at different points, including the iconic Howrah bridge. Amid all this, junior doctors suspended work for weeks demanding safety measure at their workplace, while citizens continued to hold “Reclaim the Night” protests demanding justice for the victim.

While Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee handled the situation somewhat deftly after the initial blunders, the arrival of the Durga Puja-Diwali festive season also took the edge off the prolonged protests. The CBI, which took over the case from the Kolkata Police within a week after a court order, failed to find any evidence of multiple persons being involved in the rape-murder, as rumoured, prompting people to sniff a tacit understanding between the TMC-run state government and the BJP-led Centre.

In the latest updates, both Ghosh and Mondal are out on bail as the CBI failed to file a charge sheet against them within the mandatory 90-day period. The trial is taking place on a daily basis, four days a week, at the Special CBI Court in Sealdah, and the Supreme Court said on December 10 that the trial was likely to be over in a month. A separate corruption case is on against Sandip Ghosh as well.

Whether the victim gets “justice”, as Kolkata has been crying for over four months, and whether there is closure for her loved ones and the city as a whole will likely be revealed in the new year.

3. When Mumbai had a brush with underworld after decades

Bolly superstar Salman Khan was known to be on the Lawrence Bishnoi gang’s hitlist over the killing of a blackbuck way back in 1998 during a film shoot in Rajasthan. However, no one took it so seriously until two men on a bike fired shots outside his Bandra home in April this year.

While that incident put the spotlight firmly on the Bishnoi gang for the rest of year, things got far more serious when Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) leader Baba Siddique, who was known to be close to the star, was dramatically shot dead in a brazen attack, just outside his son’s Bandra office on October 12.

As the shooters outside Salman’s house were arrested and so were the assailants of Siddique — with all of them having links to the Bishnoi gang — it emerged that the actor was the prime target but since they failed to shoot him because of tight security, they targeted Siddique instead merely because of his closeness to Salman.

Also read: The Federal's exclusive series — Bishnoi's Men

And with this, Mumbai suddenly found itself once again in the shadow of the underworld — reminiscent of the times of Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan — with the Bishnoi gang’s activities being traced all the way to Canada, the UK, and the US, barring western India.

Veteran filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma summed up the situation aptly in a couple of tweets. In one, he said, “Lawrence Bishnoi was just a 5-year-old kid when the deer was killed in 1998 and Bishnoi maintained his grudge for 25 years and now at age 30 he says that his life’s goal is to kill Salman Khan to take revenge for killing that deer. Is this animal love at its peak or god playing a weird joke?”

In the other, he quipped, “A lawyer turned gangster wants to take revenge for a deer’s death by killing a superstar and, as a warning, orders some of his gang of 700, which he recruited through Facebook to first kill a big politician who is a close friend of the star. The police can’t catch him because he is under the protection of the government in a jail and his spokesman speaks from abroad. If a Bollywood writer comes up with a story like this, they will thrash him for writing the most unbelievable and ridiculous story ever.”

But then, truth is often stranger than fiction.

4. When trust in government exams fell sharply

Students’ faith in competitive exams conducted by the government fell further this year with the ruckus over medical entrance exam NEET-UG rocking everything, from educational institutions to the Parliament, last summer.

With over 24 lakh candidates this year, the test was marred by allegations of various irregularities, including inflation of marks, leading to a record 67 candidates sharing top rank with the perfect score, to marks being randomly reduced or increased for several candidates, to paper leaks. Even in the revised results, 17 candidates shared the top rank.

Also read: Explained: What NEET-UG row is all about

While the pleas to cancel the exam reached the Supreme Court, the CBI took up the probe into the paper leak allegations. In August, the apex court ruled that the exam would not be cancelled because it did not find any systemic breach of its sanctity, it asked the National Testing Agency (NTA) to “rectify deficiencies in the exam system”.

The CBI concluded its probe and stated in its charge sheet that 144 candidates paid to get the answers to the leaked NEET-UG question papers hours before they were about to take the exam and revealed the modus operandi.

However, it could hardly redeem faith in government exams. While the UGC-NET was cancelled over fears of its integrity being compromised, the CUET-UG results were delayed by a month amid the combined controversy.

5. When cinema embraced both David and Goliath

The trend started since the COVID-19 lockdown, and though viewers started returning to the theatres in large numbers since last year, smaller films on OTT have continued to hold their ground with little-known or even unknown faces and offbeat topics.

For instance, if the big-budget Pushpa 2, Kalki 2898 AD, GOAT, Singham Again, and Devara Part 1 tasted success, so did Laapataa Ladies, Maharaja, Shaitaan, Stree 2, and Manjummel Boys. Laapataa Ladies made its way to the Oscars as India’s entry.

The horror-comedy genre seems to be particularly catching the viewers’ fancy, as Munjya, as well as Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, could pull the audiences to the theatres along with Stree 2. The all-women Crew and Girls Will Be Girls were also much spoked about.

So, it seems the little Davids of Indian cinema can well make a mark even if the Goliaths continue to rock the box office.

Also read: Zakir Hussain obit: The maestro who made the tabla sing and do all the talking

6. When India lost some masters

2024 was a particularly bad year for Indian classical and semi-classical music with Ustad Rashid Khan passing away on January 9 and Ustad Zakir Hussain on December 15. Ghazal maestro Pankaj Udhas left us on February 26 while renowned Carnatic musician KG Jayan passed away on April 16.

The world of business was left with a massive hole as Ratan Tata passed away on October 9. Some big political spaces were left vacant with the passing of SM Krishna on December 10, Sitaram Yechury on September 12, and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on August 8.

India lost one of its finest designers in Rohit Bal as well as economist Bibek Debroy on November 1. Former cricketer Anshuman Gaekwad passed away on July 31 while media tycoon Ramoji Rao left on June 8. Without these personalities, India was left a tad poorer.