The hands kept joining together, and the police kept pushing them; they found their son's dead body. In the race for a job, their breath was caught in their throat. If he had been a doctor, their son would have survived; the body was found wrapped in polythene.

"I kept crying and pleading at the gate of the recruitment ground, begging to be allowed inside... but the police pushed me away and made me run. By the time I reached inside, my son had already fallen, and his body was wrapped in a black polythene bag at the hospital!" This is the lament of Vinod Yadav, a helpless father who lost his 27-year-old son at the Moradabad Home Guard recruitment ground. Shivam Yadav, who passed B.Tech, B.Ed, CTET, and UP-TET, was just...