Neha Bora: The Indian Student Activist Challenging Exam Scandals and Fighting for Education Reform

In the summer of 2026, visuals of a young, determined woman on an extended hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi became familiar to audiences across South Asia. Neha Bora, a 29-year-old PhD scholar and National President of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), quickly became one of the faces of the massive student-led protest in India. Her campaign focused on accountability for examination anomalies, particularly the recent NEET paper leak, and broader education reforms.

To the Pakistani audience, no doubt familiar with the debates and controversies surrounding paper leaks, recruitment examinations, and youth’s struggle for fair opportunities, Bora’s story is an important glimpse of frustrations parallel next door.

Neha Bora comes from Khatima in Uttarakhand. Having been raised as the child of an Indian Army officer, she lived in multiple cities during her childhood, part of which was spent at Delhi Public School in Siliguri, West Bengal. For her higher studies, she moved to Delhi. She did her Bachelor’s in Sociology from Delhi University, followed by a Master’s degree from Ambedkar University Delhi.

Currently, she’s completing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU) School of Arts and Aesthetics, with Assistant Professor Brahma Prakash.

In addition to her academic pursuits, Bora is also a trained theater artist, which is said to have contributed to her articulate and sharply humorous style. Joining AISA – the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation – around 2018, Bora has, over time, worked her way up through extensive campus activism that included a struggle against fee hikes and for scholarship rights to reach the post of the organization’s National President. Coincidentally, her family’s political views differ sharply from her own; she has openly shared about growing up in an aggressively BJP supporter household and resulting confrontations there, the latest being when her mother came to the protest site during her daughter’s strike and after the Education Minister’s resignation congratulated the activists.

Jantar Mantar Protests and hunger strike The major breakthrough in Bora’s political career came during the large-scale students’ protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar mid-2026, which were triggered by accusations of paper leaks in the country’s national medical entrance exam, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). In the wake of the leak, the NEET exam was canceled and reports indicate that over a dozen students died by suicide due to the exam paper leak.

The massive protest campaign was popularized through the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), a satirical social-media campaign that garnered attention from the Gen Z movement through a mix of memes, reels and dark humor, alongside the efforts of the Left student parties led by AISA.

Alongside activists such as educationist Sonam Wangchuk, and her fellow AISA activists, Bora observed a 23-day hunger strike in Delhi, which she ended with an indication to continue fighting.

At the time of her hunger strike start, she weighed 66 kg, and her weight reduced by over 7 kg. While the health of the young activist became a major concern for doctors, including for blood pressure and sugar, she kept the fight relevant through social media, posting reels from Jantar Mantar. Key demands included resignation of the Minister of Education, transparency of examinations, justice for the affected candidates and families, and withdrawal of sedition cases filed against students. The protest movement gradually expanded to raise concerns about the police response to the agitating students including police brutality through baton attacks, and pellet gun attacks against protestors as a “Sansad Chalo” (March to Parliament).

Amidst the pressure and massive outcry, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned and Bora, along with others, broke their hunger strikes shortly thereafter.

Bora was in Bihar shortly after the protest movement ends where she showed her solidarity to the students and spoke out against their arrests.

What does she stand for?

Bora’s message goes far beyond the NEET exam leak.

In numerous interactions, she clearly articulates student’s dissatisfaction about a total rollback of the 2020 National Education Policy, removal of the NTA (National Testing Agency), and abolition of private education. She views the paper leak scam as the logical conclusion of years of students’ suppressed anger and distress due to an inefficient and corrupted education system. Beyond education issues, she has addressed topics such as justice for Bilkis Bano, the opposition to lynching, and humanitarian crises in Gaza.

Her activism combines sharp political analysis with accessible and easily communicable, young generation friendly messaging – short impactful speeches and the popular content on her social media.

She flew to Ranchi, Jharkhand, in early August 2026, to support students demonstrating against exam frauds committed by Jharkhand Public Service Commission and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission. As a participant in the students’ march toward the Jharkhand assembly, she was attacked with ink by a man who accused her of being “anti-national” and of sympathizing with former JNU activist Umar Khalid.

The alleged attackers was promptly detained. Responding to the incident, Bora stated that she wasn’t deterred by ink after facing baton blows and pellets in Delhi and wore it “with pride as a testament to our cause” and added that students “would write their future with ink.”

Bora’s experience can offer parallels to youth protests across the region. Her activism underlines how student mobilization can bring about significant concessions even at the higher level of government- something students, with whom such protests resonate, discussed for their respective countries. It also points towards the effective and sustained use of organized activism in alliance with traditional forms of protest with contemporary digital satire and cultural expression through theatre.

While their political and social contexts may differ, students’ demand for equitable and transparent educational structures is universal in South Asia. As of August 2026, Neha Bora continues to voice these issues on her platform and calls for widespread structural changes in India’s higher education sector and examination systems, noting that the resignation of one minister is just the beginning. To those who follow developments in Pakistan, she represents an inspiring new trend in activist young scholars and performers.