Policy | Kerala’s model worth emulating to curb exploitation on campuses - Money Control

Policy | Kerala’s model worth emulating to curb exploitation on campuses

The scrapping of internal assessment will not ensure complete elimination of discrimination and sexual harassment on the campuses, but it will surely address a major part of the vulnerability of girls and members of depressed classes to those with an evil mind.

Moneycontrol Contributor@moneycontrolcom

K Raveendran

The Kerala government has shown a model that India can follow by deciding to scrap the system of internal assessment of students in colleges. The move could not have come a day sooner.

Internal assessment had become a tool for exploitation at the hands of the teachers and supervisors, some of who behave like predators.

 Particularly vulnerable are girls and students belonging to depressed classes, who still face discrimination of various kinds at schools, colleges and offices. Instances of girls and Dalit students driven to the desperate act of taking their lives due to harassment by their supervisors have become more frequent. The worst part is that only a small percentage of cases get reported as such. Most cases go unreported or are attributed to anonymous reasons.

The pain suffered by Fathima Lateef, the humanities student at IIT Madras, who left a poignant suicide note as screenshot on her mobile phone before taking the extreme step shakes the conscience of even the unkindest among us. The message identified one of her professors as her tormentor. It is a different matter that a breakthrough in investigations has not happened yet although her parents have been moving heaven and earth to seek justice.

Discrimination against Dalit students is so widespread in our educational system that it has stopped raising an eyebrow. The forms of abuse that these children face are often so stigmatising that they can no longer endure and consequently there has been a steady increase in the number of suicides by Dalit students. 

It has been found that out of 27 cases of suicides that occurred in educational institutions between 2008 and 2016, 23 were Dalits, who suffered discrimination rooted in caste-ridden minds.

The problem of sexual harassment of students by their superiors in institutes of higher learning is so acute that the UGC issued strict regulations in 2015 to prevent such incidents. The regulations recognise the imbalance in the equation between the students and their teachers and administrative staff, which can adversely affect the students’ future by lowering their grades and taking away extra-curricular opportunities from them. This made the students particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment.

The regulations define sexual harassment as ‘unwanted conduct with sexual undertones if it occurs or which is persistent and which demeans, humiliates or creates a hostile and intimidating environment or is calculated to induce submission by actual or threatened adverse consequences’. The unwelcome acts and behaviours could include physical contact and advances, sexually coloured remarks or any objectionable act of a sexual nature ‘whether by way of physical or spoken or unspoken conduct’.

The regulations look good on paper, but their application leaves much to be desired. For instance, each educational institution is supposed to have an internal complaints committee to deal with alleged sexual abuses, but in most cases, the complaints do not reach the committee. Even if they do, things get hushed up there.

One would expect elite institutions such as IITs and medical colleges to be free from this menace, but, unfortunately that is not the case. Some of the most high-profile cases of recent times have taken place in these premium institutions, including those of Lateef and Payal Tadvi, the young Adivasi doctor at Mumbai’s Topiwala National Medical College, who was found hanging in her hostel room due to alleged harassment by her seniors.

Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), one of the country’s premier institutions, has been involved in several such cases. The story of Balmukund Bharti, a final year MBBS student hailing from Kundeshwar village in Madhya Pradesh, who took the extreme step in 2010, had created a nation-wide storm, similar to the one caused by the death of Rohit Vemula, a research scholar at the University of Hyderabad in 2016, although some questioned his Dalit origins.

It was the series of incidents in AIIMS that had forced the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry to institute a three-member committee headed by SK Thorat, the then UGC chairman, to study the issue. The committee found the existence of various forms of caste-based discrimination against marginalised students both by their classmates and faculties. The UGC regulations were drawn up on the basis of this report.

The scrapping of internal assessment will not ensure complete elimination of discrimination and sexual harassment on the campuses, but it will surely address a major part of the vulnerability of girls and members of depressed classes to those with an evil mind.K Raveendran is a senior journalist. Views are personal.

At Protest for Fathima, a Reminder of Institutional Discrimination - The Quint

A purple curtain with numerous portraits bears testimony to just how rampant social discrimination and harassment is in campuses.

(Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

At Protest for Fathima, a Reminder of Institutional Discrimination

ANNA ISAAC

UPDATED: 2 DAYS AGO
INDIA7 min read

Scores of students, belonging to different political organisations, protested in Chennai’s Valluvar Kottam on Tuesday demanding ‘Justice for Fathima Latheef’. But in the backdrop of raised fists and sloganeering, a purple curtain with numerous portraits bear testimony to just how rampant social discrimination and harassment is in campuses.

The pictures of now forgotten faces pinned up at the demonstration show that Fathima’s death is not the first of its kind, and why the spotlight should be on institutional murders and how institutions treat such deaths dispassionately.

These seven lives including Fathima are a reminder of why silence and brushing things under the carpet cannot be the norm.

Chuni Kotal, August 1992

The first woman to graduate from the Lodha Shabar tribe, Chuni Kotal, a 26-year-old adivasi took her own life on August 16, 1992 in Kharagpur. Belonging to a tribe that had been branded criminal by the British, Chuni, who was pursuing her MA in Anthropology, was subjected to years of caste-based discrimination and persecution, in particular by her Vidyasagar University professor Falguni Chakarvarti.

She was verbally abused in front of her peers, marked absent even when she was in class, and not allowed to sit for examinations. Despite multiple complaints, no action was taken.

It was only after Chuni’s story was published by writer Mahasveta Devi, thirteen days after her suicide, that it created a political uproar in West Bengal.

Chuni Kotal(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/ Chuni Kotal)

Senthil Kumar, February 2008
Pursuing his PhD in Physics in the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), Senthil Kumar, a Dalit student hailing from Salem in Tamil Nadu, killed himself in his hostel rooom on February 24, 2008. An internal fact-finding committee led by Professor Vinod Pavarala revealed how a culture of caste discrimination and prejudice had forced Senthil to take his own life.

Senthil, along with three other students belonging to the reserved categories were not assigned supervisors. Consequently, the 27-year-old failed in one of his subjects. As a result, he stopped receiving his fellowship stipend.

Unable to take the pressure, and with no guide to help him through the programme nor a fellowship to sustain his student life , Senthil Kumar, whose family reared pigs, killed himself.

Also Read : Justice for Fathima Latheef: Hunger Strike Called Off at IIT-M

Following his death, Senthil’s friend Thennarasu, a research scholar, had alleged systemic caste bias in HCU, claiming that supervisors would not take Dalit students, would delay evaluations and would raise the minimum pass mark to ensure they failed the subject, and be forced to discontinue the course.

Read Senthil Kumar’s story here.
Rohith Vemula and Senthil Kumar(Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

Rohith Vemula, January 2016

The suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit PhD scholar in HCU on January 17, 2016 shook the country’s collective conscience, trigerring widespread protests both inside the campus and outside. “My birth is my fatal accident,” he wrote in his suicide note, which went viral, revealing the deep-rooted caste prejudice and discrimination that Dalit students like him face.

Weeks before his death, Rohith and four other students were suspended after a student leader of the ABVP, RSS’s student wing, accused them of assaulting him. The issue was brought to the notice of the then Human Resources Development Minister Smriti Irani, who directed the university administration to look into the matter.

Rohith Vemula’s fellowship was suspended. The university then barred the five students including Rohith from entering the hostel or accessing any common area, although they were allowed to attend classes. Unable to afford renting a place outside, Rohith and the others pitched a tent on campus, they labelled ‘Velivada’ or Dalit ghetto.

He gave up his fight on January 17, 2016, taking his own life in a friend’s hostel room.

Read Rohith’s story here.

Also Read : One Day, I Will Resurrect: Rohith Vemula’s Poetry Lives On

Dr Saravanan Ganesan, July 2016
Hailing from Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, 26-year-old Dr Saravanan Ganesan was found dead on July 10, 2016 in his New Delhi apartment under mysterious circumstances. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) student was found dead ten days after joining the MD in General Medicine programme.

After completing MBBS from Madurai Medical College, Saravanan qualified for the postgraduate Pathology programme in AIIMS. But with his heart set on General Medicine, Saravanan quit the course and began preparations for the AIIMS entrance exam. Securing the 47th rank, Saravanan was able to successfully pursue his General Medicine dream. But to his family and friends’ shock and horror, the young doctor was found dead with two syringes possibly containing potassium chloride, plastered in his arm.

While the Delhi police had first called his death a suicide, no note was left behind by Saravanan.

At the time, his father Ganesan, a tailor by profession, had alleged that Saravanan may have been a victim of the intense competition to get into AIIMS.

In December 2016, nearly five month after his death, the Delhi police registered a case of murder. However, no headway has been made in the case.

Read Saravanan’s story here.

Dr Saravanan Ganesan(Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

Muthukrishnan, March 2017
PhD scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Muthukrishnan killed himself on March 13, 2017 at his friend’s house in Delhi. His suicide was hauntingly similar to that of Rohith Vemula and Senthil Kumar, with questions of institutitional caste discrimination and bias raised.

A Facebook post published by Muthukrishnan three days before his death reads, “There is no Equality in M.phil/phd Admission, there is no equality in Viva – voce, there is only denial of equality, denying prof. Sukhadeo thorat recommendation, denying Students protest places in Ad – block, denying the education of the Marginal’s. When Equality is denied everything is denied (sic).”

Muthukrishnan was referring to the Sukhadeo Thorat-led committee, the first to study caste discrimination in higher education. In 2011, the committee came with a series of recommendations against caste-based discrimination in educational institutions, such as providing coaching classes for English fluency, social skills and communications, setting up an equal opportunity cell to help students qualify for the National Eligibilty Test among others.

The Sukhadeo Thorat committee recommendations are yet to be implemented.

Muthukrishnan(Photo Courtesy: The News Minute)

Anitha, September 2017

In death, the 17-year-old Dalit girl from Ariyalur district, became a symbol of Tamil Nadu’s resistance to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). S Anitha, the daughter of a daily wage worker, took her own life on September 1, 2017 after she failed to secure a medical seat due to her poor NEET score.

Anitha’s dream of becoming a doctor turned to dust despite scoring 1176 out of 1200 in the Class 12 Board examinations. Her determination to secure an MBBS seat made her implead herself in the case challenging NEET in the Supreme Court that year.

But with no relief coming from the Supreme Court, and admissions based on the NEET score, Anitha was unable to join a medical course, having scored 86 out of 720. In one of her last interviews, Anitha had said, “From the village from where I am from, except for two or three people, no one wrote NEET. Even they didn’t make it. They are also talented. When people like us don’t have the means or opportunities to attend coaching classes, we can only prosper using what we have.”

Her suicide triggerred massive protests across the state, with students and political parties demanding that NEET be removed. Since Anitha’s death, many have argued that NEET is disadvantageous for those from poor households and rural backgrounds. This was substantiated by recent data submitted by the Tamil Nadu government to the Madras High Court. Only 2.1% of the students who had joined government and self-financing medical colleges in 2019 had passed NEET without enrolling in private coaching.

Read Anitha’s story here.

(This article was originally published by The News Minute and has been republished here with permission.)

2,400 students dropped out of IITs in 2 years, nearly half were SC, ST, OBC - the Print

2,400 students dropped out of IITs in 2 years, nearly half were SC, ST, OBC

Most of the dropouts occurred in the older IITs — Delhi tops the list, followed by Kharagpur, Bombay, Kanpur and Madras.
KRITIKA SHARMA Updated: 29 July, 2019 9:32 am IST

IIT Delhi | Wikipedia Commons

New Delhi: Over 2,400 students have dropped out from the 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in the last two years, with over half of them belonging to the general category. These dropouts are both at the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

According to data shared by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in Parliament last week, as many as 2,461 students dropped out of various IITs across the country, of whom 1,290 belong to the general category. The remaining 1,171 students are from the SC, ST and OBC categories.

Most of the dropouts have occurred in the older IITs — Delhi tops the list with 782 dropouts, followed by 622 in Kharagpur, 263 in Bombay, 190 in Kanpur and 128 in Madras.

The institutes on an average admit 9,000 students annually in undergraduate and 8,000 students in postgraduate courses.

While experts blame pressure, caste discrimination and postgraduate students taking up jobs as the reasons, the ministry told Parliament that it has taken the dropouts seriously and advised the institutions to take various corrective measures to improve the situation.

According to the ministry, the institutes have appointed advisers to monitor the academic progress of students, created a provision of additional classes for academically weaker students and provided counselling on family and personal issues.

The attrition rate, however, has shocked some IIT faculty members.

“I am shocked to see the huge dropout number but as far as I can understand the data, it is because of the M.Tech students who drop out after getting a job in a PSU where hiring typically happens in July,” said professor Dheeraj Sanghi who taught at IIT Kanpur.

“We have even requested the government to push the PSUs to hire in June so that we don’t have to deal with empty classrooms. On some occasions, we have even faced 60 students dropping out from an M.Tech batch of 80 and then we are forced to run the programme with just 20 students.”

IIT Delhi director V. Ramagopal Rao echoed his views but added that at the undergraduate level, most student quit as they can’t cope with the pressure of the curriculum.

“Attrition rates are higher at the M.Tech level because students leave for PSU jobs. Even the ministry is aware about PSUs hiring students after their course begins and we have taken it up with the PSUs but they don’t seem to come on board,” Rao told ThePrint.

“At the B.Tech level, students who drop out are mostly the ones who are not able to cope with the study pressure, many come from Hindi medium as well and have difficulties adjusting.”

Another faculty member at IIT Delhi, who wished to remain anonymous, said that most of the students who drop out at the undergraduate level are from the reserved category who are unable to keep up with the demands of the course.

Also read: IITs get new brief from Modi govt — work on indigenous defence technology

‘Caste-discrimination another reason’

Although more general category students have dropped out, the number of reserved students dropping out is higher in terms of proportion. Activists blame this on caste being a factor at these premier institutions, especially in the older IITs.

“The caste-based oppression in IITs is not direct but systematic,” Anoop Kumar, a documentary filmmaker, told ThePrint. “Most of the students who come to IITs under the reserved category are from non-English medium backgrounds and institutions do not make sure that the transition happens. There is no dearth of merit with these students but there is a problem with the language because of which students have to face difficulties.”

Kumar’s documentary, ‘Death of Merit’, is a three-part series with testimonies of families of students who committed suicide allegedly due to caste discrimination at these institutes.

Harvard scholar and Dalit rights activist Suraj Yengde, who has authored the book Caste Matters, also agrees with Kumar on caste-based discrimination in IITs.

“These institutes do not cater to the needs of people from reserved categories because they are occupied by people at the administration level and at faculty by people from the higher castes,” he said. “These Brahmanical professors are not used to socialising with marginalised people and when they have to, it becomes problematic.”

Naveen Kumar, an alumnus of IIT Delhi who has now formed a political party — Bahujan Azad Party — to work for reserved category students, also echoed their views.

“When I was a student, someone had written — ‘SCs, STs, not allowed here’ outside a person’s hostel room,” he said. “He went to complain to the dean but his complaint was not taken very seriously. I remember another incident where a professor rejected a girl from taking his course just on the basis of her name as she belonged to the reserved category.”

An IIT professor who has managed the IIT-JEE admissions and has been teaching at one of the institutes since 2003, however, disagreed.

“More than 2,400 students dropping out of IITs is a huge and unbelievable number, given the number of applications that we get each year,” he said. “But what is more unbelievable that there could be a caste angle to the dropouts. I do not feel that there is any kind of caste discrimination in IITs.”

The professor, though, said that reserved category students generally find it difficult to cope up with the pressure of studies once they enter the IIT system. “When students from reserved category get admission in IITs, the merit is lowered for them and sometimes we are even asked to take students who have not made the cut,” he added. “But once they enter the system, they have to face the real pressure and many are then not able to cope with it.”

Also read: The IITs have a long history of systematically othering Dalit students