New Delhi: A familiar ritual follows the release of UPSC results every year—coaching institutes release videos of mock interviews with top scorers. This year, one such interview from coaching institute Unacademy went viral for the wrong reasons. Featuring Yogesh Kumar Meena, an IIT-Bombay graduate who secured an all-India rank of 66, the interview took a troubling turn when a member of the mock panel allegedly made biased remarks about reservations for the Meena community, which comes under the Scheduled Tribe category.
“Sir, I overheard your conversations on reservation and Meenas, and it made me upset,” Meena said in the video, which has since been removed from the Unacademy YouTube channel.
A short clip of this interview later surfaced on social media, posted by a user claiming that the board member’s comments on reservation had shaken Meena’s confidence.
“Yogesh Meena UPSC AIR-66 studied at IIT-B, earning 6 lakhs per month. But… casteist board member of @unacademy didn’t even hesitate to make comments wrt reservation,” posted the user, garnering more than 1.7k likes.
Unacademy initially posted the full video on their YouTube channel. However, when people started sharing clips of the reservation remark, the company deleted the original version and uploaded an updated one without the problematic section. However, as the controversy continued on social media, Unacademy removed the entire video.
Parts of the video, minus the offensive comments, were still accessible on social media platforms at the time of publishing this report.
The brilliant most qualified IAS.
"YOGESH KUMAR MEENA".
Unacademy walo ispe bhi copyright maar do. https://t.co/36uzXtSxJI
— Tangent kumar 🔁 (@KumarTangent) April 17, 2024
Speaking to ThePrint, Meena explained that the comments were made after the mock interview board—typically composed of retired civil servants—requested he wait outside while they discussed his details.
“One of the board members talked about me behind my back. He did not say anything to my face. The board asks the candidate to go out and then calls them again for feedback,” he said. “I was laughed at for taking math as an optional subject. That member even discussed if I would not have cleared the exam without reservation. I’m expecting over 100 marks in the prelims based on various answer keys, though the official scores haven’t been released yet.”
The previous year’s cut-off for the general category in the preliminary exam was 88 marks.
Meena said that his mock interviews with other institutes, such as OnlyIAS and 99Notes, proceeded smoothly in comparison, but that he held no animosity towards Unacademy.
“The panellist was removed the next day. (Unacademy) chairperson, Yashovardhan Azad invited me to his home and motivated me, everything was nice. I have nothing against the board or Unacademy,” Meena said.
Unacademy has not yet issued a statement on the controversy. ThePrint’s phone calls to Unacademy for comment went unanswered. This report will be updated if a response is received.
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‘UPSC does not discriminate’
With roots in Rajasthan, 27-year-old Yogesh Kumar Meena and his family currently reside in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra. They come from a modest background—his father works for the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority, while his mother never received formal education.
Despite his achievements in education and career, Meena said discrimination has always been a shadow, following him even during his time working for Amazon in the US.
“I went to the US at the age of 20. I faced discrimination over there too, this was one of the reasons I came back to India. It was not like that it happened so often but such incidents did happen and made an impact on my personality,” said Meena.
He added that he tries to focus on the bright side: “I am a very mature person. I take everything positively in my life. Most of the people I met in life were helpful and nice.”
In February 2022, Meena resigned from Amazon and started his UPSC journey. “I want to work for the people and serve my country and that was the reason I left my high paying job,” he said.
While his first shot at the exam did not go well because he was “not prepared at all”, the second time, in 2023, proved to be the charm.
“I had a wonderful experience at my UPSC interview,” he added. “I can say that UPSC does not discriminate.”
This year, 32 candidates from the Meena community were among the 1,016 finalists in the UPSC results. But some people are now questioning Yogesh Meena’s choice of taking reservation despite earning a high salary.
“Earning 6 lakhs every month and still availing reservations,” wrote a user on X.
Others have argued that Meena community does not need reservations as they generally don’t come from a socioeconomically underprivileged background.
Yogesh Meena takes exception to this characterisation. “It is not true that every Meena comes from an affluent family. I have cousins who don’t have basic facilities in their village. My mother never went to school. I had to stop IIT-JEE coaching for a year due to financial problems,” he said. “People are saying that my salary was Rs 6 lakh. That was because of my hard work, not my privilege.”
On the social media allegations of reservation bias against Unacademy, Deepanshu Singh, a public policy advisor for the Indian government who previously taught at the coaching platform, said it’s unfair to criticise the entire organisation based on the actions of one individual.
“The incident shows the personal bias of the panellists. It also reinforces the fact that such panellists should also be vetted to check for such biases, rather than being onboarded for their social media presence alone,” he said.
Singh added that society as a whole should also reflect on the issue. “Caste-based identities are still relevant in every walk of our life,” he said. “Dr Ambedkar wanted annihilation of caste, but we are far away from it.”
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(Edited by Asavari Singh)