The Kota conundrum - Tribune India

Posted at: Dec 17, 2017, 2:12 AM; 

The Kota conundrum

The rising number of student suicides in Kota, the coaching capital of India, and various IITs and other elite institutions is not a story of failure of these youngsters, but of our system

According to the latest National Health Profile published by the government, one in three suicides in India is committed by those in the age group of 15 to 29 years

Aditi Tandon

It has been two years since Sumer Ram, a promising young student of medical stream and an MBBS hopeful, ended his life at a thriving coaching institute in Kota, the coaching capital of India.

Nineteen-year-old Sumer  had missed the selection for MBBS through the All-India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) by 20 marks in 2015. “My son wanted to improve his score to be able to get an MBBS entry in the 2016 edition of AIPMT. He had been at Kota for coaching for seven months, preparing for the next entrance exam. In December 2015 we got the news that he had committed suicide. It came like a bolt from the blue because everything was going fine. The institute people later told us that he had not attended classes for a few days. When we asked why they didn’t intimate us about our son’s absence, they said they couldn’t possibly track all students in the class all the time,” says a teary-eyed Hazri Ram, the deceased’s father, a resident of Nagaur district in Rajasthan. 

Hazri Ram is not alone in this anguish. Among the first recorded suicides was that of 19-year-old Nidhi Kumari from Jharkhand. Her father Rajendra Kumar is still grappling with the tragedy. She was studying in Kota for her MBBS entrance.

The latest suicide in this Rajasthan city happened as recently as December 7 this year and involved a young boy. Between 2013 and now, more than 56 students have ended their lives in Kota, unable to cope with the high-pressure preparation schedules for Joint Entrance Exam  (JEE) Advanced for entry to IITs and NITs and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for entry to top medical colleges.

The final push

Why are student suicides continuing unabated? Reasons are multiple. “Mainly because of the way the coaching centres and their schedules are structured. Annual expense to get a student coached in any top Kota institute is Rs 2.5 lakh. It’s a lot of money for most families. Returns are never guaranteed. But parents, in the hope of securing the careers of their children, take loans, sell properties and do anything they can to pay up. The pressure of this cost recovery is squarely on the student who is expected to study well and crack the test. A student’s individual potential for any discipline is secondary,” says Arvind Gupta, a Kota local, who has been tracking city-based suicides.

Each coaching class usually has 200 to 250 students with little personal attention being paid to anyone. Sundays are also not free as internal tests are scheduled on Sundays. The marks obtained in these tests form the basis to rank students within the institute. 

“A system of discriminatory teaching is followed in almost all top coaching centres in Kota, which focus on potential high performers who can bag top positions in JEE and NEET. The pressure on slow coping and low performing students is obvious,” says a parent of a student who killed himself. 

Alarmed by these deaths, the Rajasthan administration recently issued guidelines to Kota coaching centres asking them to ensure not more than 60 students in a class, mandating the centres to return the fees in case a student wanted to opt out and ordering them to institutionalise a system of sending SMS alerts to parents in case a student absented from a class for more than few days and without medical grounds. The present practice in Kota is to take yearly fee at the time of admission with no pledge to return the dues in case a student wants to exit.

Violatory practices

But all this is still being practiced in violation of the government guidelines as suicides continue and as does the business of these centres. The city has over 50 centres. Around 1.70 lakh students annually descend on Kota in the hope of making their dream careers. The commercial value of Kota’s flourishing coaching business is estimated at Rs 4,000 crore annually.

Why do students continue to queue up at Kota despite its reputation of a suicide capital? Reasons are clear. 

The mad zeal to crack the competitive engineering and medical entrance exams outweighs all considerations both for parents and students who, sometimes, have little option. 

When Varun Kumar, a Ludhiana boy, committed suicide at Allen coaching centre, Kota, on December 3, 2015, his father Balvir Ram was shocked. All Varun wanted was an edge to get enough marks to enter a government medical college which he had missed a year earlier.

“Coaching centres don’t exist in a vacuum. The ground has been laid by our faulty education system where there is a premium on cracking competitive exams while school education is ignored,” says Rajeev Kumar, a former IIT professor from Kharagpur. 

These Kota students often take admissions in the city’s dummy schools to complete their Class XII as they attend coaching classes on the side. Local administration is now cracking down on these dummy institutions.

A matter of aptitude

There have also been demands to mandate aptitude tests for students seeking admission to Kota centres so that they know about their potential at the beginning. This recommendation is part of the Kota administration’s guidelines to coaching centres but has not been followed strictly. These centres continue to enrol all students whether or not they have the skill and the aptitude to bear the gruelling preparation schedules. Naturally, weaker students fall off the academic track, many ending their lives.

The cycle of suicides doesn’t end here. It persists through the student life in IITs and NITs and various other elite institutions.

Scores of students have committed suicide after entering IITs because while coaching prepared them to crack the entrance, it didn’t prepare them to stand up to IITs’ real challenge of research and innovation. 

Mahtab Ahmed, an IIT Kanpur student, who killed himself some years ago, had scribbled on his hostel wall, “I hate IIT.”

An M. Tech student at IIT Madras, Nithin Reddy, had ended his life after being asked to repeat a course in the final year. Nithin had already landed a job and the repetition  would have meant foregoing the job.

The rat race for elite colleges

Even this year, many suicides have been reported from the elite central technical institutes, including that of IIT Kharagpur’s aerospace engineering student Nidhin M in April. He hanged himself from a ceiling fan. “Let me sleep,” was all he wrote before he killed himself.

Former IIT Kanpur Director Sanjay Dhande, who headed 

a taskforce to recommend measures to prevent suicides on campuses, feels disproportionate attention and focus on IITs and NITs as India’s top engineering institutions has created the pressure on students to get into these colleges.

The Dhande panel had suggested end of single-room occupancy in IITs and to share rooms to encourage bonding. Another suggestion was to reduce the internet speed on campuses so as to wean students off gadgets and allow them time to concentrate on lessons.

Eventually, a system of MiTR (a guidance and counselling unit) was introduced in IITs to help students cope with the stress of institutional rigours. 

The hidden signs

But even counselling services tend to miss signs of stress among students. The counselling wing of IIT Bombay  had failed to recognise a student Srikant Malapulla as a depressive. A regular at the counselling  centre, he had committed suicide.

“There is no single cause or solution for mental health issues that drive people to suicide. The high levels of competition are a major reason of stress which is why on this World Mental Health Day, the WHO had asked all employers to put the mental health of workers on their agenda. This applies to educational institutions also. Frequent demands of high performance, regular grading and the stress of campus placements in technical institutions takes a toll on students. It’s time to address the issue holistically right from reviving the worth of school education to stressing conceptual knowledge rather than test-cracking abilities which coaching centres hone,” says Dr Rajesh Sagar, Professor of Psychiatry at AIIMS, New Delhi.

Mental health experts, meanwhile, add that suicides are an emerging epidemic in India. 

Recent data reveals over 1.30 lakh suicides a year, with young being the most affected and males being more vulnerable than women.

“One in three suicides in India is committed by those between 15 and 29 years and two in three between 15 and 44 years. The younger population is more at risk,” says the latest National Health Profile published by the Government. 

It does not analyse the causes behind the trend but presents enough proof for policy makers to consider mental health implications of economic growth, competitive markets, shrinking jobs and disintegrating inter-personal and social ties.

Serial killing of dalit or tribal students? Rohith Vemula isn’t the Last Victim of Caste Hatred - Main Stream Weekly

Serial killing of dalit or tribal students? Rohith Vemula isn’t the Last Victim of Caste Hatred

Saturday 30 January 2016, 

by A K Biswas

It is a grave misfortune of a nation of 1.25 billion people that their HRD Minister is a lair, a damn lair. Her press briefing in the evening of January 19, 2016 on the suicide of Rohith Vemula is a bundle of lies, distortion and falsification. She has no parallel; nor morals. She has forfeited her credibility as a Union Minister in charge of a portfolio that has responsibility to train minds, enlighten lives and dispel the darkness of ignorance and orthodoxy. 

Her press briefing was aimed to acquaint the media with facts—‘verified by police’ obtained from ‘the ground’, according repeated and tall claims. She repeatedly told that the Proctorial Board that decided to punish the five Dalit scholars of Hyderabad Central University had at its head a Dalit. This claim made before the nation on camera is out and out false. She has underlined a game-plan. If a Dalit has to be harmed, keep another Dalit in the loop. If so, the blame can be apportioned on the poor Dalit or tribal. This was demonstrated in the last Lok Sabha session of the UPA-II. The Samajwadi Party had pressed in a Dalit MP, Nagina, of Bijnour, UP to obstruct the Constitution Amendment Bill to guarantee reservation in promotion of Dalits and tribals in government service!

In her press briefing the HRD Minister, in tone and tenor, besides body language, was an incarnation of arrogance. She was intolerant besides being theatrical in her utterances. 

Nobody believes her claim that the scholar, Rohith, was not a Dalit. It is an issue of Dalit verses non-Dalit. The victims of the system are all Dalits. And we are sure Rohith is not the last or the only one. Over ten Dalits, who were students of the Central University, have committed suicide in the past. Universities, IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, and institutes of excellence offering education and training in skill in medicines, engineering, management symbolise graveyards for Dalit and tribal students. And the country’s apathy and insolence does not recognise that the Dalit and tribal students are unwelcome for higher education and research in the nation’s institutions of excellence. 

Here is a list of 18 victims between 2007 and 2013, though it is not conclusive at all.

1. M. Shrikant, final year, B. Tech, IIT Bombay, January 1, 2007;

2. Ajay S. Chandra, integrated Ph.D, Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bangalore, August 26, 2007;

3. Jaspreet Singh, final year MBBS, Government Medical College, Chandigarh, January 27, 2008;

4. Senthil Kumar, Ph.D, School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, February 23, 2008;

5. Prashant Kureel, first year, B.Tech, IIT, Kanpur, April 19, 2008;

6. G. Suman, final year, M.Tech, IIT, Kanpur, January 2, 2009;

7. Ankita Veghda, first year, B. Sc Nursing, Singhi Institute of Nursing, Ahmedabad, April 20, 2009;

8. D Syam Kumar, first year B.Tech, Sarojini Institute of Engineering and Technology, Vijayawada, August 13, 2009;

9. S. Amravathi, national level young woman boxer, Centre of Excellence, Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, November 4, 2009;

10. Bandi Anusha, B.Com final year, Villa Mary College, Hyderabad, November 5, 2009;

11. Pushpanjali Poorty, first year, MBA, Visves-varaiah Technological University, Bangalore, January 30, 2010;

12. Sushil Kumar Chaudhary, final year MBBS, Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical Univer-sity (formerly KGMC), Lucknow, January 31, 2010;

13. Balmukund Bharti, final year MBBS, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, March 3, 2010;

14. J.K. Ramesh, second year, B. Sc, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, July 1, 2010;

15. Madhuri Sale, final year, B.Tech, IIT, Kanpur, November 17, 2010;

16. G. Varalakshmi, B.Tech first year, Vignan Engineering College, Hyderabad, January 30, 2011;

17. Manish Kumar, IIIrd Year, B.Tech, IIT, Roorkee, February 13, 2011; and

18. Linesh Mohan Gawle, Ph.D, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, April 16, 2011.

Caste arrogance has not exhausted itself after taking precious and talented lives of these victims within the given period cited above. The faculties, students and non-teaching staff of the educational institutions carry their home-grown hatred and prejudice against the vulnerable to their workplace. The academic institutions, therefore, are virtually graveyards for Dalit and tribal students. Large number of the victims of caste hatred were from Andhra Pradesh. This State is ahead of many States in technological empowerment. But it is not attitudinally ahead of Haryana or Bihar or UP. 

Education does not change the Indian, say, Hindu, supremacist attitude toward society.

The case of Pradeep Kumar, a Khatik pursuing mechanical engineering in the Kalpana Chawla Institute of Technology, Hissar, Haryana, underlines the sick mentality of the upper caste. He was murdered by two of his Jat classmates at the college gate when he was entering the campus on the fateful day. Reason? A media report screamed thus: “A topper’s murder throws light on caste in Haryana classroom”.

2 The same daily quoted his father, Ram Lal, as saying: “He did not want to go to college that morning. They had told him on Saturday that a pistol would be waiting for him.” The victim’s apprehensive father accompanied him to the college. He saw his son being killed by one of the two beasts firing from the revolver before his eyes at the collage gate. Pradeep had had cleared four of six semesters topping in each which they did not relish. And they wanted to silence him for ever. Merit actually proved to be his curse. Here the Dalits have a fabulous dilemma—if they are average or poor in studies, they face a barrage of invectives and insults for entry based on reservation; if meritorious, bullets await to greet them. Pradeep is a case in point.

Jaspreet Singh was a brilliant student doing his final year in the Government Medical College, Chandigarh. He cleared it but three of his teachers, Rajesh Kumar, Amarjeet Singh and Arun Kumar Aggrawal, blocked his upward mobility by forcing him to fail in Community Medicine. These three had threatened Jaspreet to fail again and again. They did it religiously. Seven months after his suicide, a three-member group of senior professors re-evaluated Jaspreet’s answer-sheets and found that he had cleared the subject. What a price of hatred delivered to the Dalit medial student! His sister, a heartbroken student at the injustice to his brother, doing her Bachelor of Computer Application, too committed suicide.

In the AIIMS, Delhi, Bal Mukund Bharti, a Dalit, committed suicide in the face of mounting and sustained persecution, humiliation and discrimi-nation there. There were/are several cases of harassment, discrimination and humiliation against Dalit and tribal students doing medicine in the nation’s so-called pride. And a probe committee headed by Prof. S K Thorat, former Chairman, UGC, underlined the arrogance, non-cooperation and boycott of P. Venugopal, the then Director, AIIMS for the inquiry into allegations of discrimination and harassment against Dalit students. 

In a documentary available on YouTube, called The Death of Merit, Balmukund’s parents recalled that teachers would “torture him and tell him that he had come on reservation”. A teacher directly told him: “You can never become a doctor.” “They don’t like me because of my caste,” Bharti told his father, and wanted to change his name— ”He was a Chamar from Madhya Pradesh.” For all Dalits or tribals who either commit suicide or not have similar stories of suffering and humiliation. They are unwelcome in the portals of educational institutions per se. Rarely any get justice. Who are therefore “casteist, extremist and anti-national”?

All Dalit students, boys or girls, who, defying all powerful roadblocks, social, psychological, financial or physical, on their upward movement through their colleges or universities pursuing medicine, engineering, accountancy or management, when the show signs of promise and potential, symbolise hopes and aspiration not only of the family but also of their community as a whole. Snipping them off by the quirk of upper-caste madness or hatred suddenly creates a vacuum of irreparable dimension in the family or community to which the victims belong, sparking trauma and sending powerful negative signals. 

They become apprehensive that their children are neither safe in those high temples of higher learning. Indeed the country uniformly as well as unambiguously demonstrates its revulsion against Dalits and tribals climbing the ladders of knowledge for ultimate emancipation. A brigade of assassins like Germany’s Gestapo during the fascist regime is in place everywhere to blast, thwart or scuttle Dalit or tribal aspirations by means criminal or extra-constitutional. They do not want the underdogs to be seen beyond their spheres ordained by their whims that reflect their scriptural doctrines preforming dirty professions in sewers, graveyards, streets, fields for the pleasure and happiness of upper-caste masters and lords. They want the Dalits and tribals as slaves only.

Is Fellowship for Dalits or Tribal Students a Source of Corruption?

Scholarships for Dalit or tribal students are not paid on time. These are delayed inordinately. Rohith did not get his scholarship for over seven months @ Rs 25,000 per month. He has left behind arrears amounting to Rs 175,000. Chronic delay in releasing scholarship to Dalit/tribal recipients is routine not only for Dalit fellows pursuing M. Phil or Ph.D in universities across India but also for every recipient in schools, colleges or universities across the board. Let me share my personal experience. Some three-four years back I was in Patna University to attend a seminar. In course of interaction with about two dozens of Dalit/tribal research scholars, I gathered that an organised racket was at work. Their monthly UGC scholarships were not released until and unless a substantial amount was paid as bribe to their respective supervisors. 

Release of funds is subject to their recommendation. This recommendatory power is used as a weapon to hurt the interests of Dalit scholars. So, the scholars under inescapable circumstances fell in line and met their supervisors’ lust.

I wanted to conduct a survey of the extent and dimension of abuses. I, therefore, designed a questionnaire and circulated amongst them to seek their feedback. I had assured them of perfect and foolproof confidentiality with respect to information they would share with me so their identity and interest remained a closely guarded secret. Some of the scholars filled up the questionnaire but none put down in black and white what they spoke verbally about the payment of bribe to their supervisors.

May I share my experience of doing dissertation in Patna University leading to the award of Ph.D and seen how my supervisor, a Professor of Economics of Patna University, was nothing less than a bully. (Readers, if any, may glance through my communication “Where should reform in higher education begin?” http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3340.html) 

The dissertation was, in no way, intended to yield any financial benefit to me. But the power of recommendation by the supervisor is a handle to harass, victimise, intimidate or coerce the Dalit or tribal scholars for financial gains. This is not limited to bribe. The sufferers know more.

Dr B.R. Ambedkar had befittingly underlined the difficulty of liberating the underdogs in the following words: “In the fight for Swaraj you fight with the whole nation on your side...[but to annihilate the caste], you have to fight against the whole nation—and that too, your own. But it is more important than Swaraj. 

There is no use having Swaraj, if you cannot defend it. More important than the question of defending Swaraj is the question of defending the Hindus under the Swaraj. In my opinion, it is only when the Hindu society becomes a casteless society that it can hope to have strength enough to defend itself. Without such internal strength, Swaraj for Hindus may turn out to be only a step towards slavery.” We have got independence. We have not liberated our Dalits and tribals from the thraldom of upper-caste Hindus.

 We expect a fair investigation into the case by men of proven integrity. Let the government institute a Fast Track court to try the case. The whole case from investigation to trial and award of punishment under supervision of the Supreme Court to guard against and frustrated undesirable interference of powerful elements. The entire process of investigation of the crime, prosecution and sentence should be completed within six months, if not early.3

Footnotes

1. The Milli Gazette, ‘Dalit students committing suicide in last 4 years in premier institutions’, Published Online: May 17, 2011, Print Issue: May 16-31.

2. The Indian Express, Hisar, Friday March 02, 2012.

3. The case of rape and murder of Nirbhaya was adjudicated with great promptitude.

The author is a retired IAS officer of the Bihar cadre and former Vice-Chancellor, B.R. Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur.

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Also in this section

• Safeguard Constitutional Values
• Gandhi for Today
• Netaji’s Unforgettable Words
• Reflections on Netaji Subhas
• Unimportance of Awards
• Letter to President
• Serial killing of dalit or tribal students? Rohith Vemula isn’t the Last Victim of Caste Hatred
• Rohith Vemula: From Shadows to the Stars
• Nothing but a State-Sponsored Murder
• CPM Plenum

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CENTRE SLEPT ON NHRC’S 2013 DALIT DISCRIMINATION REPORT - Bangalore Mirror

CENTRE SLEPT ON NHRC’S 2013 DALIT DISCRIMINATION REPORT

Bangalore Mirror Bureau | Jan 20, 2016, 04.00 AM IST

Students staged a protest in New Delhi on Tuesday

By: Mihika Basu

Union HRD ministry under UPA-II failed to act and did not send a follow-up notice to academic institutions across the country. The new government too did not bother to take up the matter

The Union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has been sitting on a National Human Rights Commission's (NHRC's) alert in 2013 on caste-based discrimination and violence against Dalit students in premier educational institutions across India.

Academic institutions across India denied having ever received any specific instructions or directions from the ministry — either under UPA-II rule when the notice was sent to it or later, during the Narendra Modi regime — on taking measures to protect Dalit students from discrimination on their respective campuses.

In the context of the discrimnatory practice in the Hyderabad Central University which led a Dalit research scholar, Rohith Vemula, to commit suicide, the NHRC notice pointing to widespread bias against scheduled caste students gains significance.

The NHRC notice was based on a complaint filed by Kantilal Parmar from the Navsarjan Trust, Ahmedabad, on May 24, 2013. (Interview with Parmar on Page 2) The complaint drew NHRC's drew attention to news reports claiming a series of suicides -- 18 in all -- by Dalit students in educational institutions across India over the years before Parmar's complaint.

The institutions of higher education included a few of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi where Dalit students were discriminated against forcing some of them to commit suicide.

Moreover, Parmar had said in his complaint that this list of 18 was not an exhaustive one as it only covered cases which could be documented and where parents and relatives had raised their voices against the institutions.

An NHRC notice on June 5, 2013, had said: "The National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the secretary concerned in the Union ministry of human resource development on the basis of a media report alleging fierce caste-based discrimination and violence in the hostel of Dalit students in Patna University early this year. The Commission has also received a complaint from an NGO, Navsarjan Trust of Ahmedabad, quoting media reports that 18 Dalit students committed suicides during the last four years in premier educational institutions of the country including, among others, IIT, Mumbai; IISc, Bengaluru; IIT, Kanpur; AIIMS, New Delhi."

The NHRC had further stated that the news reports, if true, "reflect widespread prevalence of discrimination towards Dalits in the educational institutions, driving them to take extreme steps".

It had observed that the state has the responsibility and duty to ensure that an atmosphere is created in educational institutions wherein everyone, irrespective of caste, creed or religion, can pursue studies. "The Constitution of India has also elaborate provisions to stop discrimination against the Dalits," the NHRC notice had said.

And yet the MHRD had failed to send out directives to the academic institutions to implement protective measures on a war-footing.

Some directors from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), on condition of anonymity, informed Bangalore Mirror that they either had not received any specific instructions from the MHRD on the issue of discrimination against Dalit students and subsequent steps that could be taken, or they could not recall receiving any such instruction from the Ministry back then following the NHRC notice.

"Usually, the IITs have strong student bodies and mentors in place who can be approached in case a student faces any problem, personally or academically. The office of the dean of student affairs across IIT campuses are also equipped to deal with any kind of discrimination against students. Also, every IIT has a strict mechanism in place to tackle complaints of bias on campus, albeit in a sensitive manner," said an IIT director. 

Widespread feeling

Meanwhile, an article by IIT Bombay's student media body Insight, in its May 2014 edition, had stated that 56 per cent of students belonging to various categories like scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and other backward classes (OBCs), felt that discrimination did exist in the institute, albeit in a discreet manner. The survey on first-year students who had joined IIT Bombay in July 2013, had said while 69 per cent freshers denied any caste discrimination, 28 per cent said it was there in an indirect manner while three per cent said they had witnessed it first-hand.

Dalit suicides that led to NHRC alert

* M Shrikant, IIT Bombay (Jan 1, 2007)

* Ajay S Chandra, IISc, Bangalore (Aug 26, 2007)

* Jaspreet Singh, Government Medical College, Chandigarh (Jan 27, 2008)

* Senthil Kumar, University of Hyderabad (Feb 23, 2008)

* Prashant Kureel, IIT Kanpur (April 19, 2008)

* G Suman, IIT Kanpur (Jan 2, 2009)

* Ankita Veghda, Singhi Institute of Nursing, hmedabad (April 20, 2009)

* D Syam Kumar, Sarojini Institute of Engineering and Technology, Vijayawada (Aug 13, 2009)

* S Amravathi, Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad (Nov 4, 2009)

* Bandi Anusha, Villa Mary College, Hyderabad (Nov 5, 2009)

* Pushpanjali Poorty, Visvesvaraiah Technological University, Bangalore (Jan 30, 2010)

* Sushil Kumar Chaudhary, Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University, Lucknow (Jan 31, 2010)

* Balmukund Bharti, AIIMS, New Delhi (March 3, 2010)

* JK Ramesh, University of Agricultural Sciences, B'lore (July 1, 2010)

* Madhuri Sale, IIT Kanpur (November 17, 2010)

* G Varalakshmi, Vignan Engineering College, Hyderabad (Jan 30, 2011)

* Manish Kumar, IIIrd Year BTech, IIT Roorkee (Feb 13, 2011)

* Linesh Mohan Gawle, PhD, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi (April 16, 2011) 

113 - 14th May 2011 - IIT’s stressed-out geeks opt for suicide solution - Tehelka

Management and counseling cells come under fire for failing to tackle spike in deaths
Sai Manish , Chennai

By the time Nitin Reddy’s door on the third floor of the Jamuna Hostel in IIT Madras was broken open by his friend after a frantic call from his father, it was too late. The 24-year-old’s limp body was hanging from the fan.

Barely hours before he cut his life short on 4 May, Nitin had made his intentions clear to his father and friends. “I tried hard but I lost,” wrote Nitin, lovingly called ‘Swamy’ by his friends, on his Facebook wall. He emailed his father A Lakashmana Murthy who works in DRDO and told him he was going to kill himself and what should be done with his possessions after he was gone. By the time Murthy, who works in New Delhi, alerted the local guardians in Chennai, it was all over.

On 2 May, Nitin, a final-year MTech (mechanical engineering) student was ordered to do another semester, which meant he could not pass out with his batchmates and faced the prospect of losing the lucrative job that he had landed at a Bengaluru-based software company.

Like the many bright sparks who fly out of IIT every year, Nitin was an adventure-loving geek. He had hugged a tree, loved someone he shouldn’t have, attended martial arts classes, feigned sickness, slept through an entire flight, performed on stage, ridden a horse, broken a bone, enjoyed his daily dose of World of Warcraft, cheered for Lionel Messi, disapproved of IIT’s skewed sex ratio, gatecrashed a party and anonymously donated to charity

“Nitin was the core (coordinator) under whom I worked at the Centre of Innovation. He was always in the thick of action and was a person who would be up for a discussion any time during the budget meetings,” says hostel mate Sai Prasad. “Two nights before his suicide, he casually mentioned that he feared getting an extension and he could lose his job. But he did not look tense. It was just one of those pre-dinner talks about our personal lives that invariably get mingled with academics. But I didn’t really imagine that he would go this far.”

“He was just asked to serve one more semester,” says IIT director MS Ananth. “As a teacher, I have been shaken by his actions. Professors will always make performance demands and that is how students excel. We can’t run an institution where students have become so sensitive to pressure. We have to look at an individual’s personal history also to examine what made him end his life.”

The management’s attitude has not gone down too well with Nitin’s distraught father who has lodged a police complaint, moved the National Human Rights Commission and is demanding a broader inquiry.

“The management is trying to discredit my son. If he was depressed then we should have been informed by his professors or by the counseling cell,” says Murthy. “I want a probe into this. If it is my son’s fault, then I am ready to take the blame. But if it is the IIT’s fault then the professor who denied my son the opportunity to pass out with his batchmates in May should be suspended.”

It is surprising that despite having personal guides and a Guidance and Counseling Unit (GCU), the management is playing a blame game by invoking Nitin’s history of depression. It is also surprising that Nitin’s guide PV Mannivannan and the management waited until just a week before the last day of the term to tell Nitin that he would have to attend classes for one more semester.

Nitin had landed a plum job at a campus interview. Despite his low CGPA, he was looking to capitalise on the great opportunity and that’s when his professor burst his bubble. His employers were not willing to wait. And also at stake were the innumerable questions that prospective employers might ask about his extension. Moreover he was the only one in his department to have been asked to serve and that amplified his embarrassment. All this created immense psychological stress, which eventually made him take the extreme step.

The death is part of a shocking trend of a spike in suicides among final-year students across IITs. Nitin’s suicide is the third such death in IIT Madras in as many years. Other IITs are even more notorious for their unusually high rates of academically linked suicides.

IIT Kharagpur — called the “suicide hotspot” by students — saw as many three suicides between 23 April and 15 July 2009, and has since averaged one suicide a year. IIT Bombay has been rocked by almost one suicide every year with two suicides in 2007. IIT Roorkee witnessed its first suicide this year when a BTech student jumped to death from the eighth floor of his hostel.

The most notorious of the lot has been IIT Kanpur, which has seen eight suicides in the past five years. In face of these figures, the IIT managements have acted in a manner that even students term “stupid and bizarre”.

If IIT Madras has blamed Nitin for being “depressed”, a four-member committee appointed by IIT Kanpur after the death of final-year student Madhuri Sale last year made even more ridiculous suggestions to prevent suicides. After Madhuri hung herself in her hostel room, the committee comprising professors recommended removing all ceiling fans from hostel rooms and replacing them with pedestal fans. Among the other measures included reducing Internet speeds to curb “web addiction”, which was being touted as one of the main reasons for suicides. There was also a plan to limit the use of cell phones so that parents could not easily talk to their children and pressurise them and also abolish the concept of single rooms and make room sharing mandatory. The plan became the butt of all jokes among the students and invited ridicule from across the board.

Many complain that the GCUs serve no useful purpose. This flaw was bared prominently when IIT Bombay student Srikanth Malepulla, 21, hanged himself in his hostel room. Despite having a GCU that includes professors and professionals, he was not identified by the mentor system as “troubled and prone to suicide”.

“We keep an eye on students in the first year and monitor every move. When they enter the second year, most have formed their friend circle and we stop monitoring their personal lives actively. The GCU cannot be a peeping tom after that and plays a more passive role,” says Ananth.

However, psychologists believe that students and parents should be willing to shoulder the blame as well. “Parents are responsible for this too,” says psychologist Divyan Varghese. “They lower the stress threshold limit of their child due to high expectations. And many kill themselves because of the fear that their parents would not accept failure. The stress on an IITian is more than the stress outside in the real world.”

Tanuj Bansal, who passed out of IIT Delhi in 2007, has an interesting take on why an IITian is under immense duress. “The first two years are the most academically challenging in IIT. But many who come think, just by entering IIT, the battle has been won,” says Bansal. “Ironically, the first two years are the best time to have a good CGPA. Even though the third and fourth years are more relaxed, it is extremely hard to improve in the last two years if one has had low grades in the first two.

“I was in the placement cell and I saw the madness among the final-year students. Out of 1,200, we managed to place 900. But the remaining had to struggle because companies wouldn’t hire them due to low CGPAs. In Nitin’s case, he had low grades but got a good job offer. And then he was given an extension that jeopardised his employment. So it was a combination of stress and embarrassment that made him take the extreme step.”

Bansal’s point becomes even more relevant when seen in the light of Nitin’s outbursts on social networks. For instance, when he received an internship offer from a firm in Texas last year, Nitin wrote on Google Buzz, “Am going to the US for summer internship. All you 9 pointers - IN YOUR FACE”. That gives a rare insight into how Nitin felt about overachievers in a fiercely competitive environment.

“Every kid who comes here has stood first in his school. And in IIT, in a class of 50, somebody out of the No. 1s has to be No. 50. The competition is huge,” says Ananth.

Despite the blame games that ensue after every suicide, there has been no concerted effort at a scientific study of the suicide phenomena that has reached epidemic proportions across IITs. The management has been reluctant to discuss the issue with the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The ministry seems to be oblivious that every few months, stressed out IITians like Nitin are succumbing to a competitive culture that doesn’t afford them the opportunity to breathe easy.

It needs to wake up and conduct a study that transforms the culture of institutes that are producing brilliant engineers and entrepreneurs, but also mental wrecks.

Sai Manish is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
sai.manish@tehelka.com

28 - 20th June 2007 - IIT-Powai student commits suicide - IBN Live

ibnlive.com
Updated Jun 20, 2007 at 07:06pm IST

Mumbai: A fourth year BTech student of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Powai on Saturday allegedly committed suicide inside his hostel room, the police said.
"Shrikant Mullappa (22), an electrical branch student committed suicide in the IIT campus before noon and this was discovered late in the evening," PTI quoted Assistant Commissioner of Police (western region) Bipin Bihari as saying. He added that no suicide note was found.
Mullappa was found dead when his friends broke into his room after repeated attempts at getting in touch with him failed. The reason for the suicide is still not known.
"We suspect academic pressure could have been the reason behind Mullappa hanging himself as some of the fellow students have told us that he was lagging a semester," Bihhari said.

23 - 1st January 2007 - IIT suicide boy was not on ‘troubled’ list

‘Mentors’ at the institute, who are supposed to identify disturbed students, had failed to mention him in the list of 10 students prepared by them

Aditi Sharma
         
Posted On Monday, January 01, 2007 at 02:38:22 AM

IIT Bombay student Srikanth Mallepula, 21, who hanged himself in his hostel room on Saturday, was not on the list of 10 students identified this year as 'troubled and disturbed' by the 'mentor system' established by the institution to recognise students who may be prone to committing suicide.

IIT has 30 mentors, picked from among students themselves, spread across various faculties between the second and fourth year. They identify students who are emotionally unstable on the basis of their behaviour as well as academic performance. Once the students are identified, they are tackled by the mentors depending on their seniority. If the mentors are unable to handle them, faculty members and even parents are brought into the picture. Chronic cases are referred to professional counsellors.

The system, started a few years ago, was intensified last year after Vijay Nukala, a final-year student, committed suicide on the campus apparently as a result of academic pressure.

However, the system did not deliver in Srikanth's case, a fellow student who did not wish to be named said. "Srikanth's points on the cumulative performance index were very low. He also had a backlog since his second semester and had not performed too well in his CAT exams. These were adequate indications for the mentor group or any other support group to identify him as troubled and help him out," the student said.

Ashok Misra, director, IIT Bombay, acknowledged it was a "worrying sign" that the mentor system could not identify Srikanth as someone who needed help. Misra said, "It is cause for concern that the mentors could not identify the student. We will now look at improving the mentoring system."

The mentor group defended itself saying Srikanth did not exhibit any telltale signs of stress or depression. "He wasn't a recluse or an introvert. He was very popular with his wing mates and batch mates. There was no way we could have spotted him on our radar," said one of the mentors who did not wish to be named. Some of Srikanth's batch mates who were with him in the hours before he committed suicide concur, saying he seemed 'normal' that day. "Until about 12 noon he was with us -- happy and making everybody around him smile. In fact, a night before he committed suicide he even went for the Mood I Live Wire concert," said a batch mate. One of Srikanth's friends said the sheer number of students on campus probably posed a problem for mentors. "The number of mentors ought to be increased if they want to make a difference," he said.

Meanwhile, people who knew Srikanth well can't get over the shock of his suicide. He loved animated films, was very popular because of his movie collection that he posted on his server at IIT and loved his computer and gadgets. Srikanth, better known as Srilu, hailed from Hyderabad.


Psychiatrist speak
Dr Bharat Shah, president of Bombay Psychiatrist Association said Srikanth's seems a case of premeditated suicide. "From what we know till now, he must have made up his mind to commit suicide. He did not want anyone to know about his intentions. It is not uncommon for such people to mingle with friends and have fun. This explains why he even participated in the college festivities," said Dr Shah. He added that many with suicidal tendencies are able to hide their grief and smile through life.

22 - 31st Dec 2006 - Exam stress drives IIT student to suicide - TOI

TNN, Dec 31, 2006, 01.57am IST
MUMBAI: A year after a student killed himself at IIT's Powai campus, another suicide rocked the campus on Saturday when 21-year-old Srikant Mallapallu hanged himself in his hostel room, leaving behind a suicide note.

"I feel I could not make it because of the backlog of exams that I need to clear. But I want to thank all my professors who helped me immensely and I am sorry for causing all these things," read the suicide note.

According to a senior police official, the suicide took place between noon and 6 pm. Mallapallu was a final year B Tech student of electrical engineering who hailed from Hyderabad.

His body was discovered hanging from a ceiling fan in room number 712, hostel number 13, by another student who went to call him for dinner around 7.15 pm.

The tragedy comes just a day after the four-day student festival—Mood Indigo—concluded on the same campus. The IIT administration has informed the boy's parents in Hyderabad. The authorities refused to comment till they had met the boy's parents.

Mallapallu's classmates said he was lagging behind the others. "Srikant used to get low grades; on an average he had a five-pointer Cumulative Performance Index (CPI)," said a friend. IITs grade student on a scale of 4 to 11 points.

During the recent placement season, while his classmates were flooded with lucrative job offers, Mallapallu did not have any offers, and this may have left him depressed.

Also, when the results of the recently held semester exam were announced, Mallapallu found that he had failed in one more subject because of which he would not be able to graduate in 2007 with his batchmates.

In November last year, another final year student, Vijay Nukala, had committed suicide in the campus. Academic pressure was said to be the cause. In 2003, a girl student had also ended her life in the hostel.

Mental health professionals are critical of IIT-Bombay for failing to identify Mallapalu as a possible suicide victim despite having two counsellors and two psychiatrists on board.

The faculty mentors, introduced after the last suicide, too failed to pick up any distress signals. "There were absolutely no sessions to train the faculty to work as emotional aid workers," said a psychiatrist on condition of anonymity.

"After the last suicide there was some soul searching but that ended with only online discussions. There was nothing face-to-face and nothing substantial was done to prevent suicides," said an insider. "Unfortunately, the attitude of the authorities is to brush everything under the carpet,"' he added.

Mental health professionals said it was not surprising that the suicide happened just after the student festival. "There is no effort to ensure that everyone is included."

21 - 31st December 2006 - IIT mates did not get his suicidal vibes

Snehal Rebello
Mumbai, December 31, 2006
First Published: 00:00 IST(23/2/2007)
IIT mates did not get his suicidal vibes

The last memory that Raj Shekhar has of 21-year-old Mallepulla Shrikant is his "happy and smiling face" at 11.30 am on December 30. Seven hours later, he found his batch mate lying dead on the floor of his hostel room number 712.

"I had just returned from Shirdi, and Shrikant came to enquire about the trip. He looked happy and didn't show any signs of depression," said Shekhar.

On December 30, Shrikant - also known as Shrilu - a fourth-year BTech student pursuing electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B), was found hanging from the fan at 6pm by a student from the next room.

According to the suicide note found in his room, "backlog of exams" that he needed to clear was the reason for his suicide. He had to clear two papers from his second year.

His body had been taken to the Rajawadi Hospital morgue for post-mortem. By 2.30 pm on Sunday, it was taken from the morgue to be flown to his home in Hyderabad.

Shrikant's mother and maternal uncle arrived in the city on Saturday midnight. He had lost his father a few years ago. Along with the family, his friends Arjun Arikeri and N Praneeth will also be present for the last rites in Hyderabad.

For his batchmates, the incident has come as a shock. They say Shrikant was talkative, fun-loving and certainly not an introvert. While Ashish Deswal agreed he had academic problems, he said,

"He had decided to appear for the papers in his last semester. He had recently taken a re-examination for a fourth-year paper and was confident of clearing it."

This is the first year that Shrikant was on campus for his birthday on December 7 as well as for Mood Indigo, the IIT-B inter-collegiate cultural festival, which ended on December 29. He did not want to miss any of it, because it was his last year in the IIT.

Other suicides at IIT Bombay

· In November 2003, 18-year-old Vartika Murthy hanged herself in her hostel room.
· In November 2005, Vijay Nakula (21) hanged himself in his hostel room due to poor academic performance.
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