Delhi's paper trail

If you thought the Narendra Modi fanboy is an idler choosing to spend all his time trolling on social media and cyberscreaming patriotic slogans, you are dead wrong. If Delhi's performance in CBSE's Class XII examinations is an indicator, being a Modi supporter and cheering for the new Prime Minister is something that keeps the crème de la crème of the capital’s student population occupied. Sarthak Aggarwal, the CBSE topper (Science stream), an emphatic Modi follower, has scored a stupendous 99.6 per cent score. A student of Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj branch, Sarthak was not just an out and out Delhi boy but also a diligent scholar, who studied for 10 – 15 hours a day, a trait he shares with the workaholic new PM. While Delhi has its taste of success with the elite club of 95-plus percenters suitably expanded from a mere 384 in 2008 to a prestigious 8,971 in 2014, the fact that most of them are ardent fans of the new PM has not gone unobserved. Delhi’s paper trail has evidently left the union government overjoyed, and perhaps they need these young guns after the perplexing fiasco by the HRD minister herself. Yet, Delhi’s jubilation at scoring big, with a hefty 2000 per cent increase in the number of students with 95 per cent or more, also has another untold story, which is about its transitioning from a city of Lutyens' elite perpetually outcompeting young scholars from a large burgeoning section of the hankering but trampled middle classes to achievers increasingly emerging from these aspirational masses.That is a facet which will completely rewrite the contours of the state apparatuses, with the bureaucracy soon beginning to reflect the democratic paradigm shifts.