Dravidian All The Way: Vijay’s Speech On NEET Confirms His Ideological Outlook

Mirroring the stance of Dravidian parties, Tamil film actor Joseph Vijay, who recently announced plans to enter politics, stated that he was not in favour of the NEET exam.

He also used the term 'Ondriya Arasu' to refer to the Union government, similar to the terminology used by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

The usage of 'Ondriya Arasu' is criticised by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its supporters. They contend that the term should be used for describing a 'block level panchayat.'

The remarks were made during a speech addressing students in Chennai's Thiruvanmiyur.

He said that the exam, which is an entrance test for those aspiring to become doctors, was affecting the chances of students in rural areas and those belonging to backward and economically weaker sections of society.

Continuing, he said that he sees three issues with NEET, with the first being that it is against the rights of states. According to him, the source of the problem was the transfer of the Education subject from the state list to the concurrent list (both the union government and the state government can legislate on matters under this list).

The second problem, according to him, was the idea of having 'one nation, one education policy and one examination.' He said that education policies should be according to the needs of each state and he wasn't stating so because of the issue of 'states' rights' but also so that students get to learn different and diverse perspectives.

Furthermore, he said that it wasn't fair to have an exam based on the NCERT syllabus when students are studying in their mother tongue and state boards.

Referring to the recent NEET paper leak, he said that it had caused people to lose faith in the exam itself. The clip ends with him saying that he fully supports the resolution recently passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly calling on the Centre to exempt the state from NEET.

Vijay, therefore, may not be bringing much of a 'change' unlike what was expected of him, say political commentators.

Also Read: What An Alliance Between Actor Vijay, Seeman, And The AIADMK Could Mean For Tamil Nadu Politics