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That Blue Smoke

Suicides point to bigger malaise at varsities

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That Blue Smoke
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Two suicides in 18 days in two premier universities. Beyond the obligatory student unrest that followed, they raised some questions of a specific nature. On March 2, Mudasir Kamran, a PhD scholar in the English and Foreign Languages University,  hung himself in his room. One possible spur: a police complaint by var­sity proctor Har­ish Vijra to the effect that Mudasir was harassing his former roommate, Wasim Salim. Vijra des­cribed Mudasir, who was from Pulwama in Kashmir, as a ‘mentally disordered rascal’ who des­erved police counselling. The police hinted at Mud­asir’s homosexual orientation and violent behaviour with Wasim, with whom he was close for five years.

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Student groups at EFLU blame varsity authorities for inviting the police into the campus instead of solving the matter int­ernally. “After returning from the police station, Mudasir broke down in front of us and said he could not accept being treated like a common criminal,” says Satish Kumar, who’s leading the protests in EFLU. In less than 24 hours, Mudasir was dead. Going by the university statute, a campus inquiry would have yielded a maximum punishment of rustication, certainly not sending Mudasir to police custody, say Satish and another student leader, Kotesh.

Predictably, EFLU has come to a standstill for 10 days with bandhs, rallies and even civil liberties groups lending their support. Vice-chancellor Sunaina Singh, while refusing to concede students’ dem­ands (Rs 20 lakh compensation to Mud­a­sir’s family, suspension of proctor Vijra), has said there will be a probe by an HRD ministry team. To quell the protests, the V-C finally issued an ultimatum, saying if students refused to attend classes, the varsity would have to be shut down.

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A similar situation has arisen in the prestigious University of Hyderabad where P. Raju, a 21-year-old student of Integrated MA (Linguistics), committed suicide in his room on March 19. His last act was to put up a Facebook post, “Dep­ression, depression. It kills me every day.” He even chatted with an Aussie friend, Elizabeth Smith, where she asked him to seek some counselling. Raju told her that there was no one in the university willing to help him.

UoH authorities immediately distan­ced themselves from the tragedy, blaming “love failure” for Raju’s suicide. But student bodies and Raju’s father P. Sambaiah say the youngster was being harassed academically since he had failed thrice in some papers. Gummadi Prabhakar, of the Ambedkar Students Association, admits that Raju was nursing a broken heart, but says the last straw was his failing to get a semester registration with exams just two weeks away.

Senior academic Professor G. Hara­go­pal says the two incidents prove that handling delicate sensibilities ought to be part of academic governance in times when students are increasingly alienated. In the case of the EFLU suicide, he says the proctor clearly mishandled the matter, especially with the student being a Kashmiri. In the P. Raju case, Haragopal, who has taught in the University of Hyderabad, says rural Dalit students do face several hurdles. “They automatically feel discriminated agai­nst and feel they are not being taken into account,” he explains. Incidentally, neither of the universities has any full-time counsellor, which is still seen as an unnecessary expense.

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“It’s sad that even today teacher-student relations in these varsities are med­iated through power and hierarchy, instead of through knowledge. The power syndrome is deep-rooted in the minds of professors,” says Har­agopal. Comparing the state of aff­airs to universities like jnu, some academics say out here authorities see student agitations as a law and order problem instead of a sign of vibrant minds letting off steam.

By Madhavi Tata in Hyderabad

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