When a student from the lowest strata of society fights against all odds to prove her merit and reach the best educational institutions in India, are those institutions proving themselves meritorious enough to recognize her worth, to accommodate, let alone nurture her aspirations?

When a Dalit or Adivasi student becomes an engineer, doctor, business graduate or scientist, it should be a cause of pride for not just the family or the community but for the entire nation. Instead, why do our nation and its educational institutions reward their merit with discrimination, humiliation, violence and death?

This documentary is third in the series of our efforts to document caste-based discrimination prevalent in Indian higher education system resulting in large number of suicides of Dalit students in the Indian campuses.

Manish Kumar Guddolian, 20 years of age, was pursuing his IInd year, Integrated Dual Degree Programme, Department of Computer Science & Information Technology, at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee.

The only son of a Junior Warrant Officer at Indian Air Force, Manish committed ‘suicide’ by jumping off from 5th floor of his hostel on 6th February, 2011.

The documentary is based on the testimonies of Manish’s parents and other family members who have yet to come in terms with his death and are fighting against the collective might of IIT Roorkee and Roorkee Police that, as usual, want to relegate their child’s death to ‘a weak student getting depressed for not able to cope up with rigorous academic environment of highly competitive IITs’ .

However the truth is Manish committed suicide, unable to bear the constant castetist assaults and abuses by his own batch-mates, criminal attitude of his hostel warden and IIT Administration that instead of acting on his complaints forced him to live outside IIT Roorkee, and perhaps also due to the complete shattering of his faith on IIT Administration that was supposed to treat all its students as equals and without using caste-lenses.

The Death Of Merit – Manish Kumar (IIT Roorkee) Part – I

The Death Of Merit – Manish Kumar (IIT Roorkee) Part – II

First two documentaries 

• The Death of Merit:Dr Jaspreet Singh

Dr Jaspreet Singh, 22 years,a student of Final Year, MBBS at Government Medical College, Chandigarh committed suicide on 27th Jan, 2008.

• The Death of Merit: Dr Balmukund Bharti 

On March 3rd, 2010, another Dalit, Balmukund Bharti, final year MBBS student from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi committed suicide.

Read More

• List of Dalit students committing suicides in India’s Premier Educational Institutions, (click here)
• Report of Prof Thorat Committee on Caste Discrimination in AIIMS, New Delhi, (click here)
• Report on Caste Discrimination in IIT Delhi,(click here)
• An article ‘On Suicides, Caste and Higher Education‘,  (click here)

Media Coverage 

• In Dalit student suicides, the death of merit, The Hindu, (May 8, 2011)
• Death of merit, and of a family’s dreams, Hindustan Times, (May 10,2011)
• Icarus goes to flying school:Why are Dalit students in India’s best educational institutions committing suicide?, Tehelka Magazine (Vol 8, Issue 20, 21 May 2011)
• Les dalits ne sont pas les bienvenus dans les grandes écoles indiennes, inde.aujourdhuilemonde.com (May 19, 2011)
• India education: Dalit student suicide, Global Post (May 24, 2011)
• A Dissonance In Saraswati’s Divine Veena:The spectre of caste prejudice lingers on even in our most prized institutions, OUTLOOK Magazine, June 27, 2011

This article has been translated from the previous blog post ‘Who Killed Dr. Balmukund Bharti in AIIMS‘ by Ratnesh Kumar, PhD, Babasaheb Ambedkar National Institute of Social Sciences, Mhow, Indore.

'फक ऑफ फ्रॉम दिस विंग'-एम्स के SC/ST विद्यार्थियों के लिए एक सन्देश. (सौजन्य: द टेलीग्राफ)

स्वास्थ्य एवं परिवार कल्याण विभाग मंत्रालय, भारत शासन ने वर्ष २००६ में ऑल इंडिया इंस्टिट्यूट ऑफ़ मेडिकल साईंसेस (AIIMS), नयी दिल्ली, के दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों द्वारा संस्थान में व्याप्त  जाति भेदभाव की शिकायतों की जांच के लिए  तत्कालीन विश्वविद्यालय अनुदान आयोग के अध्यक्ष प्रो एस के थोरात के नेतृत्व में एक ३ सदस्यीय कमेटी  का गठन किया था.

कमेटी  ने अपनी रिपोर्ट ५ मई २००७ को सौंपी जिसमे न सिर्फ देश के इस  ख्याति प्राप्त शिक्षण संस्था के दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों के प्रति जाति विद्वेष की भयावह दास्तान सामने आई  बल्कि  संस्थान के कुछ अनुसूचित जाति और जनजाति के शिक्षको की भी व्यथा  प्रकट हुई. परन्तु इसके बावजूद सरकार ने कुछ नहीं किया.

इस रिपोर्ट की सिफारिशों  के आधार पर न तो कार्रवाही की गई और न ही किसी दोषी को दण्डित किया गया.

तीन साल बाद, ३ मार्च २०१० को एम् बी बी एस (MBBS) अंतिम वर्ष के एक दलित छात्र बालमुकुन्द भारती ने अपने हॉस्टल के कमरे में फांसी लगाकर आत्महत्या कर ली. इसके कुछ दिनों पहले भी वह आत्महत्या का एक असफल प्रयास कर चुका था.

एम्स प्रशासन ने अपना रटा रटाया बयान दिया कि ” उक्त छात्र एम्स के कठोर शैक्षणिक वातावरण से तालमेल नहीं बिठा पाने की वज़ह से गहरे डिप्रेशन में चला गया था.”

पुलिस ने भी मृतक के पिता जो कि अपने बेटे की लाश लेने आये थे पर दबाव डाल कर हस्ताक्षर करवा लिए कि ‘ इस मौत का एम्स प्रशासन से कोई लेना देना नहीं है’.

इस तरह इस प्रकरण को बड़ी  आसानी से  ख़त्म  करा दिया गया. पर सच्चाई तो यह है कि डॉ बालमुकुन्द भारती को उसकी आत्महत्या करने से पहले ही मार डाला जा चुका था.

आत्महत्या  तो महज़ एक औपचारिकता भर थी.

प्रोफेसरों के द्वारा अपशब्दों की मार, पीड़ा और प्रताड़ना, वरिष्ठ छात्रों से रेगिंग के नाम पर बुरी तरह से पिटाई खाने और कैम्पस की मुख्यधारा से पूरी तरह से कटने का एकमात्र कारण उसका दलित होना था. डॉ भारती ने संस्थान में इस पीड़ा को पूरे ६ साल तक झेला था.

यह एक अत्यंत ही कष्टकारी और धीमी मौत थी.

बालमुकुन्द ने अपने कटु अनुभव माता-पिता और अन्य रिश्तेदारों से बांटे थे. जिनकी रिकॉर्डिंग हमने “The Death of Merit ” डोक्युमेंट्री  में की है.

कृपया इस डोक्युमेंट्री को आप अवश्य देखें.

 भाग  I

 भाग II

यदि  कोई डॉ भारती की मौत से तीन साल पहले आई प्रो थोरात कमेटी की रिपोर्ट को पढ़े  तो उसके लिए  लिए बालमुकुन्द के माता-पिता द्वारा उसके संघर्ष के बयान पर कोई आश्चर्य नहीं होगा, और ना ही उसकी आत्महत्या पर .

हमें, बल्कि,  बाकी दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों का इस अमानवीय उत्पीडन और हिंसा सहने के बाद भी अपनी हिम्मत और दृढ़ता से उस कैम्पस में जीवित रहना आश्चर्यचकित करता है जिसका घोषित उद्देश्य उन्हें डॉक्टर  बनाकर मानवता की  सेवा करना है.

शायद डॉ भारती कि मौत टाली जा सकती थी, वह शायद जी सकता था और अपने सपनो को साकार करते हुए डॉक्टर भी बन सकता था यदि शासन तीन साल पहले आई प्रो. थोरात कमेटी कि रिपोर्ट को लागू करने का  हलका सा भी प्रयास करता.

प्रो. थोरात कमेटी

एम्स में व्याप्त जाति उत्पीडन के मामलो को देखने के लिए १२ सितम्बर २००६ को स्वास्थ्य एवं परिवार कल्याण विभाग, भारत सरकार द्वारा प्रो. थोरात कमेटी का गठन किया गया.

इस समिति के तीन सदस्य थे-

१ प्रो. एस के थोरात (अध्यक्ष, विश्वविद्यालय अनुदान आयोग)
२ डॉ के एम् श्याम प्रसाद (उपाध्यक्ष, राष्ट्रिय परीक्षा बोर्ड )
३ डॉ आर के श्रीवास्तव( निदेशक सामान्य स्वस्थ्य सेवा)

एम्स प्रशासन की बेरुखी और असहयोग

प्रो. थोरात कमेटी ने अपनी छानबीन की शुरुआत करने से पहले एम्स के निदेशक और प्रशासन से अनुरोध किया था कि वे अपने विद्यार्थियों, शिक्षकों और अन्य कर्मचारियों का कमेटी के सदस्यों से मिलने का प्रबंध करे.

कमेटी के सदस्यों ने इसके लिए सीधे निदेशक से भेंट की और उनसे अनुरोध किया कि वे विद्यार्थियों को कमेटी के बारे में सूचित करे तथा मिलने के लिए एक निश्चित स्थान की जानकारी को भी  नोटिस बोर्ड पर चस्पा कर दे. परन्तु कमेटी को गहरा आश्चर्य हुआ कि निश्चित तिथि और समय पर उसे किसी भी विद्यार्थी या कर्मचारी का कोई जवाब नहीं मिला.

बाद में पता चला कि एम्स प्रशासन द्वारा कमेटी के अनुरोध को पूरी तरह नकार दिया गया है और दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों तथा संकाय  सदस्यों को कमेटी के बारे में बताया तक भी नहीं गया है.

एम्स प्रशासन, खासतौर पर निदेशक पी वेणु गोपाल का जातिभेद की जांच के खिलाफ इतनी बेरुखी थी कि उन्होंने उच्च शिक्षा विभाग के आला शासकीय अधिकारियों के द्वारा कैम्पस में व्यापत जाति-भेद पर रिपोर्ट मांगने पर उसका जवाब देना तक मुनासिब नहीं समझा.

इस सम्बन्ध में अंग्रेजी राष्ट्रीय दैनिक, द टाईम्स ऑफ़ इंडिया, १४ नवम्बर २००६, में छपी मनोज मित्ता की रिपोर्ट के अनुसार-

जब तत्कालीन उच्च शिक्षा सेक्रेटरी  सुदीप बनर्जी ने सितम्बर २६ को एम्स निदेशक पी वेणुगोपाल से लिखित रूप से उत्कृष्ट मेडीकल कॉलेज में दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों के उत्पीडन पर रिपोर्ट मांगी तो उन्होंने इसका कुछ भी जवाब नहीं दिया.

जब सरकार ने  १३ सितम्बर को यू जी सी अध्यक्ष प्रो सुखदेव थोरात की अध्यक्षता में एम्स में व्याप्त अस्पृश्यता की जांच कराने हेतु एक तीन सदस्यी कमेटी का गठन किया तो वेणुगोपाल ने पैनल को अपना नोटिस जिसमे पीड़ित विद्यार्थियों से प्रमाण के साथ कमेटी से मिलने का आमंत्रण था को कैम्पस में नहीं लगाने दिया.

मनोज मित्ता आगे लिखते हैं-

राष्ट्रीय परीक्षा बोर्ड के उपाध्यक्ष श्याम प्रसाद, जो की एम्स में व्याप्त जाति भेद की जांच कर रही थोरात कमेटी  से जुड़े थे, ने कहा कि वेणुगोपाल, पैनल को सुचारू रूप से काम करने के लिए “आवश्यक सहयोग” नहीं दे  रहे है.

प्रशासन ने थोरात कमेटी के नोटिस  को कैम्पस में लगाने के आग्रह पर ध्यान नहीं दिया. संस्थान  निकाय की मीटिंग में प्रसाद ने बताया कि जो लोग थोरात कमेटी तक पहुंचे  उन्हें भी अन्य  लोगो ने कमेटी के सामने अपना बयां देने के लिए धमकाया था परिणामस्वरूप, थोरात कमेटी अपनी रिपोर्ट निर्धारित तिथि अक्टूबर १३ तक नहीं सौंप पाई.

(इसे पढने के लिए द टाईम्स ऑफ़ इंडिया के समाचार पर क्लिक करे)

एम्स प्रशासन की इस बेरुखी और असहयोग से प्रो थोरात को अंततः विद्यार्थियों से प्रत्यक्ष संपर्क (Direct contact) करना पड़ा और उन्हें इस कार्य के लिए एम्स से बाहर एक स्थान चुनना पड़ा.

कमेटी  ने अपनी रिपोर्ट के पृष्ठ संख्या ८ पर इस बात का साफ़ तौर पर ज़िक्र किया है कि   -

प्रबन्धन द्वारा नोटिस नहीं लगाने की शिकायत  पर जांच के लिए जब कमेटी  अध्यक्ष और एक सदस्य ने एम्स का दौरा किया तो  पाया कि वास्तव में नोटिस चस्पा नहीं किया गया था.

दलित और आदिवासी  विद्यार्थियों में   प्रशासन की मर्जी के खिलाफ जा कर अपना बयान देना भयभीत करने वाला था क्योंकि इससे पहले जिन भी दलित-आदिवासी छात्रों ने कबही किसी कमेटी के सामने अपनी शिकायते दर्ज कराइ थी उन्हें उल्टा प्राधिकारियों द्वारा तंग ही किया गया था. अतः कमेटी ने निर्णय लिया की वह प्रत्यक्ष संपर्क (Direct contact) विधि के माध्यम से एम्स के बाहर ही  विद्यार्थियों से मिलेगी.

अत्यंत शर्मनाक बात थी कि एक सरकारी संस्था जो पूरी तरह जनता के पैसे से चल रही है, वह भारतीय संविधान का उल्लंघन कर और सरकार के आदेश की अवहेलना करते हुए जाति भेद की जांच के लिए गठित  सरकारी कमेटी  से  असहयोग कर रही थी.

एम्स शिक्षको  द्वारा किये जाने वाला जातिगत भेदभाव

एम्स की परीक्षा व्यवस्था में योगात्मक (summative) परीक्षा और आतंरिक मूल्यांकन दोनों होते है . और फ़ाइनल परीक्षा ke ५० प्रतिशत अंक, आतंरिक परीक्षा के माध्यम से निर्धारित होते हैं. अतः इस प्रक्रिया में  शिक्षक के लिए भेदभाव करने का पूरा मौका होता है. प्रो थोरात कमेटी ने सर्वे और साक्षात्कार विधि के द्वारा एम्स के SC/ST विद्यार्थियों का उनके शिक्षको के साथ अनुभव जानने  का प्रयास किया.

 रिपोर्ट के पृष्ठ १९ पर कमेटी उल्लेख करती है-

सर्वे में प्रश्न पूछा गया कि  क्या SC/ST विद्यार्थियों को प्रत्यक्ष शिक्षण सत्र (One to One Teaching session) और प्रयोगशालाओं में प्रदर्शन (Demonstration) के समय किसी भेदभाव का सामना करना पड़ता है तथा किस हद तक इन विद्यार्थियों को शिक्षको से सलाह-मशविरा आदि लेने में कठिनाइयों का सामना करना पड़ा है. कमेटी ने विद्यार्थियों से चर्चा और साक्षात्कार के माध्यम से भी इन सवालो का जवाब जानने की कोशिश की.

कमेटी के सामने अपने विचार व्यक्त करते हुए बड़ी संख्या में दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों ने बताया कि उनका शिक्षको के साथ कोई चर्चा और संपर्क नहीं हो पाता और उन्होंने यह भी बताया कि  किस तरह कुछ विद्यार्थियों  को उनकी जाति की वज़ह से पढ़ाते समय नज़र अंदाज़ किया जाता है.

पृष्ठ २० पर कमेटी लिखती है-

मेडिकल क्षेत्र में विद्यार्थियों को  कौशल सीखने के लिए शिक्षकों पर निर्भर होना पड़ता है. पर इस संस्थान में  SC/ST विद्यार्थियों को उनके शिक्षकों की तरफ से कोई सहयोग नहीं मिलता और  ना ही अन्य विद्यार्थी इन्हें किसी भी तरह का सहयोग देते है. इसतरह की बेरुखी का SC/ST विद्यार्थियों पर गहरा मानसिक  असर होता है, जिससे उनके प्रदर्शन पर विपरीत असर पड़ता है और वे कम ग्रेड पाते है या फिर फेल भी हो जाते हैं .

SC/ST विद्यार्थियों के साथ पूरी बेरुखी दिखाने के अलावा ये शिक्षक पढाई के सत्र में भी इनके साथ भेदभाव करते है फिर चाहे वह प्रयोगशाला हो, प्रक्टिकल परीक्षा हो या थेओरी पेपर की जांच करने का मामला.

लगभग ८८ प्रतिशत  अनुसूचित जाति और जनजाति के विद्यार्थियों ने प्रो थोरात कमेटी को अपने जवाब में बताया की शिक्षक उन्हें लिखित परीक्षा में उतने अंक नहीं देते जिनके कि  वे  हकदार है. प्रेक्टिकल परीक्षा और वाइवा (viva) में भी उन्हें इसी बदनीयती का सामना करना पड़ता है. विद्यार्थियों ने बताया कि यहाँ तो भेदभाव एकदम खुले और घटिया तौर पर होता है.

लगभग 92 प्रतिशत SC/ST विद्यार्थियों ने कमेटी के सामने शिक्षको के जातिवादी रवैय्ये की खुलकर बात कही और बताया कि प्रेक्टिकल और वाइवा में शिक्षक उनसे प्रत्यक्ष या अप्रत्यक्ष रूप से उनकी जातीय पृष्ठभूमि के बारे में पूछते हैं जिनसे उनके ग्रेड प्रभावित होते हैं.

एम्स फैकल्टी के भेदभावपूर्ण व्यवहार पर दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों के व्यक्तिगत साक्ष्य:

 कमेटी की रिपोर्ट में बहुत से दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों के व्यक्तिगत साक्ष्य हैं, जिनमे में से दो का विवरण यहाँ दिया जा रहा है-

प्रकरण  1 (रिपोर्ट का पृष्ठ २३)

फाइनल प्रोफेशनल परीक्षा के बाद मेरे एक प्रोफेसर ने मुझसे पूछा कि मै किस जगह से आता हूँ, मैंने उन्हें बताया कि गाज़ियाबाद. एक सीनियर रेसिडेंट जो IRCH में डी एम् कर रहा है के सामने उन्होंने कहा कि ये ‘बदमाश’ है और इसे परीक्षा पास करने से रोकना होगा. इसलिए मुझे लगातार esfMflu में फेल किया जाता रहा.

 मैं यहाँ कहना चाहता हूँ कि मैं पिछले तीन सेमेस्टर में इस विषय में कभी भी फेल नहीं हुआ था. मैंने इस विषय  में प्री फ़ाइनल  परीक्षा ६० प्रतिशत अंको के साथ पास की थी. जब मैंने अपना प्रश्न पत्र चेक किया तो मुझे लगा कि शायद मेरी कॉपी चेक ही नहीं की गयी थी.

 मैंने यह परीक्षा ६ महीने बाद दुबारा दी  पर मुझे फिर इस विषय में फेल कर दिया गया. मै लगातार परीक्षा देता गया और मुझे लगातार एक साल तक इस विषय में फेल किया जाता रहा . अंत में मैंने इस पेपर को चार अन्य पेपर के साथ एक ही प्रयास में पास कर लिया. यह केवल इसलिए संभव हुआ क्योंकि इस समय वह टीचर छुट्टी पर था इसलिए यह परीक्षा एक अन्य टीचर ने ली थी. बार-बार फेल होने से मेरी छवि ख़राब हो गई थी जिससे मुझे गहरा मानसिक आघात पंहुचा था .

 प्रकरण २ (रिपोर्ट के पृष्ठ २३-२४)

आरक्षित वर्ग के विद्यार्थियों को हर समय फेल किया जाता है. पिछले साल किसी  भी SC विद्यार्थी को उनके  पहले साल की फाइनल प्रोफेशनल परीक्षा में पास नहीं होने दिया गया.

उदहारण के लिए, सुजो को पहली प्रोफेशनल परीक्षा में ७० प्रतिशत अंक मिले और दूसरी प्रोफेशनल परीक्षा में ५५ प्रतिशत अंक मिले परन्तु  अंतिम प्रोफेशनल परीक्षा में वह पास भी न हो सका जिससे उसे इतनी पीड़ा हुई की वह मानसिक तनाव में पहुँच गया और उसे अपना इलाज करवाना पड़ा.

बहुत से प्रथम वर्ष के विद्यार्थियों को अंतिम परीक्षा में पास नहीं किया गया. जबकि उन्होंने पहले की परीक्षाओ में बहुत अच्छा किया था.

ऐसा लगता है की संस्थान काबिल अनुसूचित जाति/जनजाति के विद्यार्थियों को पहले ही वर्ष रोककर एक यह जताना चाहता है की आरक्षित वर्ग के विद्यार्थी ऐसे ही होते है.

एम्स के शिक्षको का दलित-आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों के प्रति रुख और संस्थान में व्याप्त भयावह जातिवादी माहौल  देखकर कमेटी  अपनी रिपोर्ट के पृष्ठ २६ पर कहती है -

…..समस्या बहुत गहरी है और इसका सम्बन्ध कुछ उच्च जाति के शिक्षको के रव्वैये से है जिनमे से कुछ का  रुख SC/ST के लिए भेदभाव, घृणा तथा असहयोग से भरा होता है.

एम्स प्राधिकरण को इस मुद्दे पर गंभीरता से ध्यान देना होगा. इसके लिए शायद एम्स के शिक्षको को SC/ST विद्यार्थियों के लिए संवेदनशील होने और उनके लिए सहयोगी होने के वास्ते कुछ प्रशिक्षण की जरुरत होगी.

शिक्षको के द्वारा ख़ारिज किये जाने से इस मुद्दे का कोई हल नहीं होगा. यदि SC/ST विद्यार्थी अलग- थलग  महसूस करते है तो इसके लिए एक बिना धमकी वाले वातावरण में खुले संवाद की अत्यंत जरुरत है.

होस्टलो में दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों के सामने पेश आने वाली परेशानिया

कमेटी  पृष्ठ ३० पर लिखती हैं-

काफी समय से मीडिया में, विद्यार्थियों और शिक्षको के बयान के आधार पर, रिपोर्टें आई कि आरक्षण विरोधी आन्दोलन के बाद से अनुसूचित जाति/जनजाति और अन्य विद्यार्थियों के बीच सामाजिक भेद उभर कर आया है.

मीडिया ने लिखा कि  १) होस्टलो के कमरे आवंटन, २) मेस में ३) मिलने-जुलने ४) सांस्कृतिक उत्सव और ५) खेल-कूदो में जाति भेद साफ़ नज़र आ रहा है.

हमने इस पक्ष को जानने के लिए दो विधियों का पालन किया. जैसा कि ऊपर उल्लेख किया जा चुका है, हमने एक प्रश्नावली विद्यार्थियों को बाँट दी जिनमे से हमें उन २५ विद्यार्थियों का जवाब मिला जो हमसे अपने अनुभव बांटना चाहते थे.

कमेटी  ने इन होस्टलो में जाकर उन विद्यार्थियों से बात की और उनके बयान रिकॉर्ड किये परन्तु उनकी पहचान सुरक्षित रखी गयी.

०५ जुलाई २००६ को द टेलिग्राफ अखबार में २२ SC/ST विद्यार्थियों को बेइज्ज़त कर कमरे छोड़ने पर विवश   इलाज करने का मामला सामने आया था. इस समाचार को प्रो थोरात कमेटी  ने आधार बनाते हुए दलित-आदिवासी विद्यार्थी और सवर्ण विद्यार्थियों के बीच व्याप्त जाति-भेद को जांचने का कार्य आरंभ किया.

एम्स के कोटा विद्यार्थियों को जबरन एक कोने में डाला गया
चारू सुदन कस्तूरी , द टेलिग्राफ, जुलाई ०५, २००६

एम्स का  कुछ भाग अनुसूचित जाति/जनजाति के पृथक्करण का स्थान बन गया है. आरक्षित वर्ग के विद्यार्थियों को उच्च जाति के विद्यार्थियों द्वारा उनके कमरों से ढूंढ-ढूंढ कर होस्टलो के दो मंजिलो में ठूस दिया गया.

'Fuck off from this wing" was engraved on the door of room 49, (Hostel1)

हॉस्टल १ उमाकांत के रूम न. ४९ के दरवाजे पर बेहद गन्दी गाली से खुदा सन्देश इसकी गवाही देता है. इस सन्देश में उमाकांत के माध्यम से सारे  दलित-आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों को साफ़ कहा गया कि  ‘वे हॉस्टल के इस विंग से चले जाये.’ आधे से अधिक दलित-आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों का अपना रूम बदलना यह दिखाता है कि यह सन्देश काम कर गया.

देश के नामी मेडिकल कॉलेज के हॉस्टल न. ४ और ५ की दोनों उपरी मंजिलो में कुल ३२ कमरे हैं जिनमे से २७ कमरों में  अनुसूचित जाति/जनजाति विद्यार्थी हैं. संस्थान में कुल २५० विद्यार्थियों में ५५ अनुसूचित जाति/जनजाति के हैं.

हॉस्टल का रिकॉर्ड बताता है की २२ विद्यार्थियों का पृथक्करण आरक्षण विरोधी आन्दोलन के कारण हुआ जब मानव संसाधन मंत्रालय ने अन्य पिछड़े वर्ग के लिए कोटा लाने की सिफारिश की थी. एक छात्र ने बताया कि अन्य दलित भी इस जगह आना चाहते हैं पर जगह की कमी के कारण ऐसा नहीं कर पा रहे.

एम्स के प्राधिकारियों ने कहा कि  वे “आवश्यक कार्यवाही” करेंगे.

उप-डीन डा. सुनील चुम्बेर ने कहा की अपने कॉलेज के दिनों में उन्होंने खुद उस तरह के भेदभाव झेले हैं, “मेरे कमरे में तोड़-फोड़ की गई थी, सामान बर्बाद कर दिया गया था, क्योंकि में आरक्षित वर्ग से आता हूँ”

एक सेनियर रेसिडेंट डॉक्टर के अनुसार “चूँकि, निदेशक पी वेनोगोपाल खुद आरक्षण विरोधयों का समर्थन करते हैं  ऐसे में हम अपनी शिकायत किसे दर्ज कराएं”

वँही रेसिडेंट डॉक्टर्स असोसिएशन  के अध्यक्ष डॉ विनोद पात्रो  जो आरक्षण विरोधी आन्दोलन में अहम् भूमिका निभा रहे हैं  ने कहा की “एम्स कैम्पस में कोई भेदभाव नहीं होता” और  “यह महज उनकी कल्पना है”

कुछ अनुसूचित जाति/जनजाति के विद्यार्थियों ने कहा कि इस भेदभाव का खुलासा करने पर हमें परीक्षा में फेल कर देने की धमकी मिली है.

एक रेसिडेंट डॉक्टर ने अपना उदहारण देते हुए कहा कि उसे खुद पहले ही साल में फेल कर दिया गया था एवं  प्रत्येक वर्ष आरक्षित वर्ग के औसत ११  में से ५  विद्यार्थियों को रोक दिया जाता है.

एम्स का नियम कहता है की पांच सालो में यदि कोई एक ही वर्ष में दो बार फेल हो जाता है तो वह अपना पोस्ट ग्रेड्यूएशन नहीं कर सकता.”

इसलिए विद्यार्थियों ने बताया की करियर बिगड़ जाने के डर से  वे प्राधिकारियों के सामने अपनी छवि नहीं बिगाड़ना चाहते हैं.  मेडीकोस फोरम फॉर इक्वल ओपोरट्युनिटिस - एक आरक्षण समर्थक समूह – के डॉ विकास बाजपाई कहते हैं “विद्यार्थियों के पास पांच साल तक सहन करने के सिवाय कोई और चारा नहीं बचता”.

राष्ट्रीय दैनिको में छपी ऐसी कई रिपोर्टो के बावजूद एम्स प्रशासन ने इस ओर कोई कदम नहीं उठाया उलटे इन बातो को यह कहते हुए ख़ारिज कर दिया कि छात्र-छात्राओं ने अपने कमरे सीलन या टी वी  रूम  से नजदीकी से परेशान होने आदि कारणों से बदले हैं.

एम्स के हॉस्टल सेक्शन के एक पत्र (दिनांक ०३/०८/०६ के अनुसार) जो श्रीमती के  ढाका (वरिष्ठ वार्डेन) प्रो एस  दत्ता (उपनिरीक्षक हॉस्टल) प्रो जे एस तितियल (उप निरीक्षक हॉस्टल), डॉ एस एस काले (उप निरीक्षक हॉस्टल, डॉ मिनती चौधरी (उप निरीक्षक हॉस्टल) प्रो जी के रथ (अधीक्षक हॉस्टल) और एम्स के निदेशक द्वारा हस्ताक्षरित में इसका उल्लेख मात्र करते हुए इस प्रकरण को बंद कर दिया गया.

पिछले कुछ हफ़्तों में हमने अलग-अलग छात्रों से तफसील से उनके रूम छोड़ने पर चर्चा की, जिनमे अलग अलग अंडर ग्रेदूएट पुरुष होस्टलो से आंकड़े एकत्र किये तो पाया की २९ छात्रों ने रूम बदलने के लिए आवेदन किया था जिनमे सीलन, टी वी रूम से तकलीफ, सीढ़ी से दूरी, मेस और स्वास्थ्य सम्बन्धी कारण गिनाये गए थे.

होस्टलो में जाकर सम्बंधित छात्रों से मिलने पर प्रो. थोरात कमेटी को पता चला की २९ अनुसूचित जाति/ जनजाति को जातिगत अत्पिदन कि वजह से अपना रूम छोड़ना पड़ा.   ’उच्च’ जाति के छात्रों ने इन पर लगातार दबाव डाल , अपमानित कर और मार पीट कर अपने कमरे छोड़ने के लिए मजबूर किया.

कमेटी ने समबन्धित छात्रों के बयान रिकॉर्ड किये जिनको रिपोर्ट में संलग्न किया गया है. उनमे से एक बयान को नीचे दिया जा रहा है (पृष्ठ संख्या ७, संलग्नक ३.२)

कृपया बताएं की आपका यहाँ कैसा अनुभव रहा है ?

मेरा कमरा बेतरतीब था, इसलिए मुझे यू जी  हॉस्टल १ में शिफ्ट करना पड़ा पर वहां भी ४-५ दिनों के बाद मेरे  कमरे में बाहर से ताला लगाया जाने लगा.

कब तक यह ताला बंद रहा?

कोई ताला लगाकर चला जाया करता था, मुझे अपने दोस्तों को बुलाकर इस ताले को तुडवाना पड़ता था. यह सिलसिला काफी दिनों तक चला. हफ्ते के आखिरी दिन में, मैं घर चला जाया करता था.  एक इतवार जब में घर गया हुआ था और शाम को लौटा तो पाया की दरवाजे पर बहुत भद्दी गालियाँ लिखी हुई थी.

क्या लिखा हुआ था?

‘फक ऑफ फ्रॉम दिस विंग- हरामी इस विंग को छोड़ दो”

क्या आपने शिकायत दर्ज कराई थी?

जी हां, मैंने हॉस्टल के ऑफिस में लिखित शिकायत दर्ज कराई थी.

फिर?

एक हफ्ते तक प्रशासन द्वारा कोई कार्रवाही नहीं तब मैं उनके पास गया. उसके बाद  प्रशासन ने दरवाजे पर लिखने वालो को बुलाकर उनसे पूछा कि  ‘आपने ऐसा क्यों लिखा?’ लेकिन कोई कार्रवाही नहीं की गई ..

क्या वे जानते थे कि यह किसका काम है?

मैंने उन लडको का नाम बताया था जिन पर मुझे शक था.

इस पर भी उन्होंने कोई कार्रवाही नहीं की?यानि तब आपको यह कमरा छोड़ने पर मजबूर होना पड़ा?

जी हाँ. यहाँ हर पल तनाव बना रहता था मैं पढ़ नहीं पा रहा था.

तो क्या इस नयी जगह अधिक दलित है?

जी हाँ यहाँ काफी है.

क्या यहाँ कोई मार-पीट भी हुई थी ?

जी हाँ, हुई थी मैंने दुबारा शिकायत दर्ज की, वे मेरे कमरे में घुसे उस वक़्त मै  खाना खा रहा था, उन्होंने मेरे साथ धक्का मुक्की की. उन्होंने मेरी कॉलर पकड़कर पलंग पर धकेल दिया.

यह क्या इसलिए की आपने  उनकी शिकायत की थी?

जी हाँ सर.

क्या आपने यह प्रशासन को सूचित किया था ?

जी हाँ.

क्या लिखित रूप में?

जी हाँ.

इसके बाद प्रशासन ने क्या किया?

उसके द्वारा कोई कार्रवाही नहीं हुई.

यहाँ  ऐसे कितने छात्र होंगे जिनका यही अनुभव होगा?

ऐसे कई जूनियर छात्र हैं, हर किसी को अलग अलग तरीके से यह झेलना पड़ा,

अब पढ़िए कि इस मुद्दे पर एम्स ने क्या किया?

प्रशासन ने दोषियों को बुलाया और इस पूरे वाकिये को बड़े ‘सौहाद्रपूर्ण’ तरीके से सुलझाया. बड़े ही विशिष्ट और  उदार भाव से पीडितो को दोषियों से हाथ मिलाने कहा गया, और हॉस्टल वार्डेन को यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए कहा गया की दोनों वर्गों में बराबर दोस्ती बनी रहे और दलित छात्रों को उनके कमरे बदलने दिए जाए.

नीचे हॉस्टल ऑफिसर (रूम न. १३) में २१ अप्रैल २००६ को शाम ३.०० बजे हुई मीटिंग के अंश दिए जा रहे है.

आल इंडिया इंस्टीटयूट ऑफ़ मेडिकल साईंसेस
हॉस्टल सेक्शन
ऍफ़ न.१४ -१०/२००६/हॉस्टल                                                                                           दिनांक २१.०४.२००६

विवरण

श्री उमाकांत, हॉस्टल न.१ के कमरा न. ४९ के निवासी  की ” गाली -गलौच और धमकी बाबत शिकायत (पत्र १७.०४.०६) सम्बन्धी ” जो उनके कमरे के दरवाज़े पर लिखा गया था, यह विषय जूनियर वार्डेन की सहमति से हॉस्टल सेक्शन के सम्बंधित वार्डेन तक ले जाया गया .

इसमें निम्लिखित कर्मचारी उपस्थित थे:

१ प्रो  जी के रथ (हॉस्टल  अधीक्षक)

२ डॉ एस एस काले (हॉस्टल  उपनिरीक्षक)

३ डॉ एस दत्ता गुप्ता (हॉस्टल उपनिरीक्षक)

४ श्रीमती भूपिंदर पौल (हॉस्टल उपनिरीक्षक)

५ श्रीमती कृष्णा ढाका (हॉस्टल वरिष्ठ निरीक्षक)

इनके अतिरिक्त इस मीटिंग में निम्नलिखित छात्र भी मौजूद थे:

१ श्री तारिक ज़मान (हॉस्टल सेक्रेटरी)

२ श्री उमाकांत

३ श्री सुशांत स्वरुप दास

४ श्री अमोल रहेजा

५ श्री निशांत गोयल

मीटिंग के दौरान श्री उमाकांत ने यह भी बताया कि घटना २१ अप्रैल २००६ को उसके दरवाजे पर  बाहर से ताला लगा दिया गया था, जिससे वह अपनी क्लास भी नहीं जा सका था. वँही श्री निशांत गोयल ने भी शिकायत की कि उसके कमरे और श्री अमोल रहेजा के कमरे को भी उसी दिन उसी समय बाहर से ताला लगा दिया गया था. जब दोस्तों ने रूम खोले तब दोनों ही पक्षों ने एक दूसरे पर ताला लगाने का इल्ज़ाम लगाया.

छात्रों को उनके कर्त्तव्य की ओर आगाह किया गया और उन्हें बताया गया कि किसी भी किसी भी रूप में अनुशासन तोडना बर्दाश्त नहीं किया जायेगा और उन्हें अपनी पढाई पर ध्यान देने के लिए कहा गया. श्री अमोल और श्री निशांत के खिलाफ कोई साक्ष्य नहीं था कि उन्होंने दरवाजे पर लिखा है. फिर भी शिकायत के आधार पर उनको भविष्य में ऐसा नहीं करने की चेतावनी देकर छोड़ दिया गया.

हॉस्टल सेक्रेटरी को कठोर चेतावनी दी गयी की अब से ऐसी किसी किस्म की अनुशासनहीनता बर्दाश्त नहीं की जाएगी और दोषियों पर कठोर कार्रवाही की जाएगी.

श्री निशांत और श्री अमोल से लिखित आश्वासन लेने के पश्चात कि ऐसी घटना दुबारा नहीं होगी,  श्री उमाकांत को उसके पुराने कमरे में शिफ्ट होने की इजाज़त दे दी गई.

अंत में श्री उमाकांत, श्री अमोल और श्री निशांत ने एक दूसरे से हाथ मिलाये. श्री तारिक ज़मान (हॉस्टल सेक्रेटरी) ने आश्वासन दिया कि वह श्री उमाकांत और श्री निशांत गोयल एवं श्री अमोल रहेजा  के बीच दोस्ती कायम रखने का वादा करता  है.

दोषियों और पीड़ित के बीच इतने ‘सौहाद्रपूर्वक’और “कठोरतम” सजा के बाद जब पीड़ित हॉस्टल वापस गया तो उसके साथ फिर धक्का मुक्की की गई. दलित छात्र ने अपनी व्यथा का बयान प्रो. थोरात कमेटी से कुछ महीने पहले ही किया.

एम्स में अनुसूचित जाति और जनजाति के विद्यार्थियों का ‘उच्च’ जाति के विद्यार्थियों द्वारा पृथक्करण, मार-पीट, गाली-गलौच  एक नियम बन चुका  है और इसका एक लम्बा इतिहास है (उपर्युक्त वाकिया अप्रैल २००६ को हुआ था) किन्तु इसको और अधिक बल ‘उच्च’ जाति के विद्यार्थियों के आरक्षण विरोधी आन्दोलन के साथ मिला जिसकी शुरुआत १३ मई २००६ से हुई थी.

प्रो थोरात कमेटी ने इस बात का स्पष्ट उल्लेख किया कि दलित आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों को अनेक बार मारपीट, गाली-गलौच, तानाकशी और अन्य प्रकार की प्रताड़ना का शिकार होना पड़ा पर इस कदर प्रताड़ना के बावजूद एम्स प्रशासन ने कोई कदम नहीं उठाया. और जैसा कि ऊपर लिखा जा चुका है कि श्री उमाकांत के मामले में एम्स प्रशासन ने जांच कमेटी गठित की और इसे वह बिना किसी को दंड दिए ‘सौहाद्रपूर्ण’ तरीके से निपटाने में सफल हुए.

वँही कुछ आतंरिक कमेटियों ने तो हमारे विद्यार्थियों को सीधे डरा-धमकाकर उन पर दबाव बनाते हुए उनसे उनकी शिकायत वापस लेने के लिए कहा गया और उन्हें सीधे चेतावनी दी कि यदि दोषियों के विरुद्ध उसने कोई कार्रवाही की तो इसका ‘हिंसक परिणाम’ होगा.

नीचे तीन दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों का जाति भेद को जांच कर रही कमेटी पर सम्पूर्ण अविश्वास को लेकर एम्स के निदेशक को लिखे गए पत्र को प्रस्तुत किया जा रहा है.

प्रति,
निदेशक
एम्स, नयी दिल्ली
दिनांक: ४ सितम्बर, २००६

विषय: जातिगत भेदभाव की शिकायतों की जांच कर रही कमेटी पर अविश्वास बाबत.

महोदय,

हम आपका ध्यान कैम्पस में हो रहे जातिभेद की शिकायतों की जांच कर रही कमेटी की ओर दिलाना चाहते हैं जो पूरी तरह  पक्षपात से युक्त है. हमें इसपर कटाई यकीन नहीं कि यह हमारी शिकायतों का वास्तविक निराकरण कर पायेगी.

सबसे पहले तो यह कि ये कमेटी निश्चित समय में उचित कदम उठाने के वायदे के बावजूद भी पर्याप्त कदम उठाने में अक्षम है. इस मामले की सुनवाई के दौरान होने वाली कार्यवाही से स्पष्ट होता है कि यह जानबूझ कर किया गया है.

दूसरा,  इस मामले की निष्पक्ष एवं पारदर्शी जांच के बजाय  हम पर बहुत अधिक दबाव बनाने का प्रयास हुआ है कि  हम अपनी शिकायते वापिस लेले.

अंततः सारा मामला हमारी विनय  के विरुद्ध चला गया जब कमेटी के एक सदस्य ने यह कहा की ..”यदि कोई कार्रवाही भी हो गई तो उससे क्या हासिल हो जायेगा, आप कैसे पक्का कर लोगे के दोषी कोई मारपीट नहीं करेगा.”

उपर्युक्त वाकिये ने हमारा कमेटी से पूरा विश्वास उठा दिया स्पष्ट  है कि  कमेटी  पक्षपातपूर्ण है और वह सीधे तौर पर दोषियों का पक्ष ले रही है. अतः इस मामले पर पर्याप्त कार्रवाही करने की कृपा करे.

आपके सत्यनिष्ठ

(३ दलित ओर आदिवासी छात्रों के हस्ताक्षर)

iv  रेगिंग ओर जातिसूचक प्रताड़ना .

एम्स में भले ही आधिकारिक रूप से रेगिंग बंद हो गई पर सत्र के पहले महीने में  अब भी रेगिंग चलती है, पर प्रशासन आँख बंद किये बैठे रहता है. एम्स की रेगिंग में गंभीर जातिसूचक तानो और निकृष्ट किस्म अपमानजनक हरकते हैं जिसमे मारपीट, और जातिगत गालिया बहुत आम है.

प्रो थोरात कमेटी ने पाया (पृ ३६)

इस सवाल पर कि क्या हॉस्टल में अनुसूचित जाति और जनजाति के विद्यार्थी को जातिगत आधारपर रेगिंग का सामना करना पड़ता है, सभी विद्यार्थियों का उत्तर “हाँ ” था. यह स्पष्ट है कि अनुसूचित जाति/जनजाति के विद्यार्थियों को उनकी जातीय पृष्ठभूमि के कारण अपमान सहना पड़ता है.

कमेटी ने एम्स में दाखिल होने वाले नए दलित और आदिवासी विद्यार्थियों को पेश आने वाली परेशानियों के बारे में इंटरव्यू लिया जिसमे अन्य बातो के साथ रेगिंग का उल्लेख था.

इन इंटरव्यू के अलावा कमेटी ने विद्यार्थियों के लिखित दस्तावेज़  भी पेश किये जिन्हें रिपोर्ट के संलग्नक ३.१ और ३.२ में संलग्न  किया गया है.

जो इस तरह है -

I.  कमेटी द्वारा लिया गया छात्रो का इंटरव्यू  का लिखित संस्करण

1. वे हमें अपने रूम में बुलाकर पूछते थे कि तुम इसके दस कारण बताओ कि तुमको आरक्षण क्यों मिला है? बताओं कि तुम एम्स के काबिल क्यों नहीं हो?

यदि तुम नहीं बताओगे तो हम तुम्हारी पिटाई करके ताला लगा देंगे.

ऐसे कुछ प्रकरण थे जिनमे कमरों पर ताला लगा दिया गया था.

कुछ के रूम के बाहर बहुत सी गालियाँ लिखी गयी.

किसके रूम के आगे?

बालमुकुन्द भारती

वह कौन सा कमरा था?

हॉस्टल में दूसरा था.

2. सर, यह सामान्य धारणा है की जो तथाकथित निम्न जाति के लोग जो आरक्षित वर्ग से है को दया के आधार पर लिया जाता है.

‘निम्न’ जाति के विद्यार्थियों से इस हद तक घृणा है की यदि कोई सामान्य विद्यार्थी भी इनसे जुड़ता है तो उसे समूह से नकार दिया जाता है.

रेगिंग के समय सबके दिमाग में यह भर दिया जाता है…हर किसी की शुरुआत यहीं से होती है… तुम ये हो. और तुम्हारे साथ ऐसा ही बर्ताव होगा.

तुम यहाँ केवल आरक्षण के कारण ही हो, तुम्हे यहाँ नहीं होना चाहिए.

रेगिंग के समय वे (‘उच्च जाति के नए विद्यार्थियों ) को अलग ऊपर कुर्सी या पलंग पे बैठाया जाता है और हमें ज़मीन पर.

वे आपको बताते है, “तुम यहाँ मेरिट के कारण नहीं बल्कि आरक्षण के कारण हो” इसलिए अलग बर्ताव जरुरी है.

असल में अरक्षित वर्ग के विद्यार्थी भी उनसे नहीं भिड़ते क्योंकि उनके विरुद्ध कभी कोई कार्रवाही नहीं होती है. उन्होंने इस ट्रेंड को देखा है.

ट्रेंड यह है कि  उन्हें ही तो वाईवा लेना है. यदि तुम शिकायत करोगे तो तुम पर परेशानी पलट कर आ जाएगी.

हम जानते है की हमने बहुत अच्छा पेपर दिया परन्तु फिर भी हमें फेल  कर दिया गया.

हमको एक बफर के तौर पर रखा जाता है. सभी को पास नहीं किया जा सकता इसलिए हमें रोक दिया जाता है क्योंकि हम आरक्षित वर्ग से हैं.

२००३ में एक झगडा हुआ. यह जाति आधारित था उसमे मेरा एक बेचमेट बुरी तरह से  जख्मी हुआ.

हम लोग एस सी एस टी चेयरमेन के पास गए. हम बहुत से नेताओ के पास गए- जहाँ-जहाँ हम जा सकते थे.

इस समय निदेशक ने बड़ा ही विचित्र निर्णय सुनाया उन्होंने सीधे कहा कि “हम सभी को संस्थान से निष्काषित कर दिया जायेगा”.

इस निर्णय में  हमारा वह दोस्त भी शामिल किया गया था जिसकी जानलेवा हद तक पिटाई हुई थी.

हमें मजबूरन अपनी शिकयत वापस लेनी पड़ी.  और किसी भी दोषी को सजा नहीं हुई.

II. लिखित बयानों के कुछ अंश

१. मै (नाम) एम्स का  एम् बी बी एस छात्र बेच २००२, आपको इस संस्था में मेरे साथ हुए जातिभेद का वीभत्स व्यवहार को बताना चाहता हूँ. सर जाति भेद कि शुरुआत उसी दिन से हो गई थी जब मेने पहली बार इस हॉस्टल में कदम रखा था.

मुझे मारा गया, जाति के नाम पर अपमानित किया गया और मानसिक रूप से प्रताड़ित किया गया. यहाँ तक कि मेरे बेचमेट  जो ‘ऊँची’ जाति के थे ने जाति आधारित ताने मारना शुरू कर दिया.

मेरे हॉस्टल के विंग वाले मुझसे बात तक नहीं करते थे और जब मै इस कमरे यानि ३/४५ में आया तो उन्होंने मेरे दरवाजे पर  लिख दिया ” तुम्हे यह कोई पसंद नहीं करता,फक ऑफ़ फ्रॉम थिस विंग”

वे मुझे कैरम खेलने नहीं देते थे जो कि सबके लिए था, उन्होंने एक नोटिस भी लगा रखा  था, “इस कैरम को ३/४५ के अलावा हर कोई खेल सकता है.”

यह कोई एक घटना नहीं है बल्कि मेरे हर अनुसूचित जाति और जनजाति के मित्रो को कई तरह से जाति भेद सहना पड़ा.

२. सर मै (नाम) एम्स एम् बी बी एस  प्रथम वर्ष छात्र आपको इस पत्र के माध्यम से अपना बयान देना चाहता हूँ कि मुझे आरंभिक दिनों से इस संस्थान में जाति आधारित भेदभाव को सहना पड़ा था.

शुरूआती दिनों में मुझे ‘ऊँची’ जाति वाले छात्रों ने एकदम अलग कर दिया था और मेरे रूम को  अक्सर किसी सीनियर द्वारा बाहर से लॉक  कर दिया जाता था. यहाँ  तक कि रेगिंग में भी हम लोगो कि अलग से रेगिंग होती थी  जो सामान्य वर्ग के छात्रों से अधिक तकलीफदेह होती थी.

हॉस्टल ज्वाइन करने के ५ दिनों बाद एक सीनियर शेरी मोदी (५ व सेमेस्टर) मेरे रूम में आकर मुझे रूम छोड़ने की धमकी देने लगा और उसने कहा कि यदि में ऐसा नहीं करूँगा तो वह मुझे भविष्य में भी ऐसा ही करेगा.

६ सितम्बर की शाम को निखिल गुप्ता, आनंद वेंकेतरमण, चेरियन, नितिन मिश्र, गन्धर्व गोयल, संजीव एस नागपाल  नाम के कुछ सीनियर मेरे  दोस्त के कमरे में आये और हमें पिटवाने के लिए धमकाने लगे.

अगले दिन हमने दोषियों कि शिकायत निदेशक से की जिन्होंने हमें २४ घंटे के अन्दर कार्रवाही करने का आश्वासन दिया और हमारे नाम जाहिर कर दिए. दोषी तब  समझोते के कोशिश करते रहे,

उन्होंने हमें उनकी तरफ से उलटी शिकायत कि धमकी दी. वे झुण्ड में आने लगे और हमसे साइन लेने में सफल हुए कि उन्होंने कुछ भी नहीं किया है.

यहाँ तक कि एम्स छात्र  युनियन का अध्यक्ष भी आया और कहने लगा कि हम अपना आवेदन जाति भेदभाव से हटाकर गैर रेगिंग भेदभाव की घटना की ओर केन्द्रित करे  अन्यथा पल्स नहीं होगा. पर पल्स यथावत हुआ..

पल्स के  दिन हम सभी कमरों को बाहर से  लॉक कर दिया गया. इसके लिए एक कमेटी बैठाई गई  जिसके अध्यक्ष निदेशक थे और अन्य सदस्य थे  - टी डी डोगरा , डॉ बीर सिंह, डॉ रानी कुमार.  इस कमेटी  ने कोई सकारात्मक सुझाव नहीं दिया और इसने भी समझौते का मार्ग सुझाया.

अब तक दो महीने बीत चुके है पर कोई कार्रवाही नहीं हुई.

सर मै आपसे अनुरोध करता हूँ कि आप हमें इस शोषण और उत्पीडन से बचने के लिए आवश्यक कार्रवाही करेंगे.

मेस और खेल में भेदभाव 

एम्स में दलित और आदिवासी छात्रों की पीड़ा महज़ शिक्षकों के भेदभावपूर्ण व्यवहार, ‘ऊँची’ जाति के लोगो की गाली गलौच ऑर हिंसा तक ही नहीं है बल्कि यह भेदभाव हॉस्टल में मेस और खेल के मैदान में भी बराबर होता है.

कमेटी  के सामने अनुसूचित जाति ऑर जनजाति के विद्यार्थियों ने बताया कि उन्हें हॉस्टल के मेस के अन्दर नहीं जाने दिया जाता, ये पूरी तरह ‘उच्च’ जाति वालो के लिए है, यदि हमारे विद्यार्थी किसी खेल कूद में भाग लेने की कोशिश करते है तो उनको गाली- गलौच और मार-पीट का शिकार होना पड़ता है.

कमेटी  ने पाया कि (पृ ३३)-

विद्यार्थियों के लिए दो प्रकार की मेस होती है- सामान्य मेस ऑर प्राइवेट मेस. प्राइवेट मेस में विभिन्न किस्म का भोजन उपलब्ध होता है और यह थोड़ा महंगा भी होता है. दलित आदिवासी विद्यार्थी केवल जनरल मेस में ही जा सकते है ऑर प्राइवेट मेस में उनका प्रवेश निषेध है. लगभग ७६ प्रतिशत अनुसूचित जाति और जनजाति के विद्यार्थियों को प्राइवेट मेस ज्वाइन करने में प्रतिबन्ध झेलना पड़ा है.

खेल का मैदान भी जाति के वाइरस से नहीं बच पाया है. एक रेकॉर्डेड इंटरव्यू में एक दलित छात्र ने बताया-

वे अपना एक समूह बना लेते है. वे बास्केट बौल खेलते हैं. शुरुआत में हमारे बेच का एक छात्र उनके साथ खेलने गया उसे वहां  ऐसा बर्ताव मिला कि वह दुबारा बास्केट बॉल खेलने कि हिम्मत नहीं कर पाया. ….. वे बास्केट बॉल खेलते है और हम वोलिबॉल (हंसी). 

कमेटी अपनी रिपोर्ट के पृ ३६ पर कहती है

बास्केट बॉल एक ऐसा खेल है जो सिर्फ और सिर्फ सामान्य वर्ग के छात्रों के लिए ही है. वँही वोलिबॉल और फुटबॉल आरक्षित वर्ग के लिए है. छात्रों से पूछा गया कि क्या उन्होंने विभिन्न खेलो में किसी किस्म का भेदभाव सहा तो ८८ प्रतिशत छात्रों ने बताया कि उन्हें बास्केट बौल खेलने ऑर ६० प्रतिशत ने कहा कि क्रिकेट में भेदभाव का सामना कराना पड़ा.

_______________________________________

Merit did not die. It kills. It lies in wait and takes the life of dalit students after they have entered the prestigious educational hellhole – by refusing to let them pass, by standing between them and the future. Merit is a murderer.

The deaths of young people, the hopes of their parents and their communities, has forced the festering casteism and anti-democracy of the ‘prestigious’ educational institution into the public realm.

Their deaths remind us again that Merit has blood on its hands, that bloody Merit is the offspring of generations of privilege and exploitation, that Merit was fed on blood.

This is why we must read these suicides as protest, why we must reclaim these lives within the struggle against caste.

Illustration by Dr. Harish Wankhede (JNU, New Delhi) Courtesy:Insight Magazine (Dec 2004)

When did the language surrounding an educational institution become so vicious – elimination, testing, selection, exclusion, prestigious, hallowed, competitive, meritorious, premier, leading? A little less prestige and little more democracy would be welcome.

The anti-democratic nature of educational institutions is never clearer than when they begin to talk with smug complacence about how prestigious they are.

Within their hallowed portals, learning is not a broadening of the mind but a restriction of it. Political engagement will be systematically strangled at birth.

Those who get in ‘exclusively’ on merit will be fed with love and care and passing marks. Those who get in inclusively with affirmative action will be told they are failures, that they have no right to be there. They will be poisoned with hatred, discrimination and discouragement.

Exclusivity is the hallmark of the prestigious educational hellhole. Exclusive – another weasel of a word, on par up there with Merit. An exclusive institution excludes, by the very nature of its being.

In these repressive institutions, students cannot organise, cannot form support systems. Their identities are criminalised – to have gained entry to this organisation despite belonging to the communities they come from, that is their crime. The rest of the student body is there because of their prestigious castes, no crime there.

Prejudices that governments takes ponderous steps to counter can be reinstated by practising exquisite cruelty, by refusing to grant one mark. Just one.

Sections of civil society work conscientiously to keep others beyond the pale of civil society. The educational institutions of prestige and Merit contribute towards this end, to stand guard at the gates, to police the boundaries of their power. They create products in their own image, they teach their students to talk the language of Merit, to pride themselves on their Meritorious achievements, to make them believe that Merit equals entitlement.

Merit is the cutting-edge conceptology deployed to cut off the right to entry. The sacred temples of learning protect their gates religiously with the guillotine at the threshold named Merit. Inside the sacred portals of learning, the guillotine is refashioned as sacrificial altar.

The high priests of higher education sacrifice aspirations at the altar of Merit unceasingly. When the gods of Status Quo grow hungry, they sacrifice lives as well. The high priests of learning grade inequality with exquisite skill, withholding one mark, one.point.five marks.

Note to prestigious educational hellholes:

For the record, yours is to create worth – not determining how much each student is worth to you. The refusal to pass students has been your principal tool of ‘disciplining’, of maintaining Status Quo – that was what you told Chuni Kotal and Jaspreet  Singh and so many others, that they did not deserve to be there, that they can never come up to the rarefied heights that you have attained.

How you tried everything in your power to push them down. Now they can never be pushed out, they will remain within your confines, illuminating the outlines of your tools of exclusion with a blinding, searing light, a scar on your conscience (assuming you have a conscience that is in working order) Their suicides a wound on the educational body that refused to allow them space to breathe.

No, you did not fail these students, you failed yourself.

You showed us that it is the prestigious educational institution that is the real, colossal, absymal failure. Not the brave intelligent students whom you crushed the lives out of.

The fat paychecks that your prestigious students of prestigious castes will get are only further proof of your failure, of how you have abandoned yourself to widening and deepening existing inequalities.

After a lifetime of trying to strangulate protest and instill the values of respectful hierarchy, you now have to face voices of disrespect, challenging your carefully-graded hierarchy.

The deaths of these young people who got past your vicious portals against all odds – their suicides are not acts of giving up. They are screams of defiance at the altar of Merit. After you have spent a lifetime of silencing dissent, fostering the values of respect for hierarchy and quiet submission, these acts of protest must be galling.

Not that you have stopped trying. Now you spread disinformation in an attempt to depoliticise discussion. Now you ignore the whole issue. Now you retain the HOD who was directly responsible for the death of a student. No, prestigious educational hellhole, we can’t give you marks for just trying. You have failed.

Here’s an assignment to make up for being a murderer. We doubt if you have the necessary calibre to answer them. But then we would hate to be unfair.

Describe the way forward in an appropriate vocabulary where inclusion has replaced Merit.

OR

A politicised education that can create citizens who are aware of the deep disparities that exist in this brutal country with a history of grotesque crimes against its own people [instead of uninformed individuals, divorced from the realities of the country they live in and blind to their own privilege] is the need of the hour. Discuss.

OR

What is a good educational institution? A prestigious educational haven of exclusivity and quality merit? Or an institution that educates its students?

You don’t have much time left.

[Malarvizhi Jayanth is a former journalist and editor who hopes to start research soon. She curates a blog of personal narratives of caste at http://writingcaste.wordpress.com/ ]

'Fuck off from this wing' - A message for SC/ST students in AIIMS. Courtesy : The Telegraph

In 2006, a 3 member committee under Prof S.K. Thorat, Chairman, University Grant Commission, was instituted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India to look into the complaints of  caste-based harassment against Dalit and Adivasi students at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

The committee came with a report, on 5th May, 2007, that brought out the horrors of caste-discrimination suffered not only by the students but also by handful of SC and ST faculties in the Institute that is considered to be one of the country’s premier educational institutions.

However, the government did nothing and singularly failed to initiate any action to punish the perpetrators or implement any of  its recommendations.

Three years later, Balmukund Bharti,  a final year MBBS Dalit student at AIIMS, commits suicide on 3rd March, 2010.

He hanged himself to death in his hostel room after a failed attempt on his life just few days before.

The AIIMS administration came out with the standard version of  ‘a student who went into depression as he was not able to cope up with the rigorous academic environment of AIIMS’.

The police also closed the case by forcing the father, who had come to take the dead body of his son, to sign on the statement that ‘he has nothing against AIIMS administration’.

But the truth is that Dr Balmukund Bharti was killed much before he committed ‘suicide’. Suicide was a mere formality.

Abused, humiliated, harassed by professors, beaten up severely by his seniors in the name of ragging, completely alienated from the ‘mainstream’ campus life,  all due to his Dalit background, Dr Bharti died a very painful and slow death that stretched into the entire period of about 6 years of his stay in AIIMS.

Please watch his parents and other relatives speaking, the only ones whom he confided about his ordeals, in the documentary ‘The Death of Merit’ here -

Part I

Part II

The testimonies of his parents and relatives about the struggle of Dr Bharti is no surprise, not even his suicide, if one goes through what Prof Thorat Committee wrote, in 2007,  three years before his death.

Instead what surprises us is the guts and perseverance shown by the rests of Dalit and Adivasi students who have to endure utmost humiliation, dehumanization and violence and yet survive in a campus, that is supposed to train them to become doctors to serve the humanity.

Perhaps, Dr. Bharti’s death was not inevitable, perhaps he could have survived and become a doctor to fulfill his dreams if the authority would have cared enough and acted on the report of the Prof Thorat committee, three years before.

The Prof Thorat Committee

Prof  Thorat Committee was constituted by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, on 12th September, 2006.  It was given the mandate to look into all matters connected with the caste-harassment and included following as its members -

1. Prof S.K. Thorat (Chairman, University Grant Commission)

2. Dr K.M. Shyam Prasad (Vice President, National Board of Examinations)

3. Dr. R.K. Srivastava (Director General of Health Services)

Hostility of AIIMS Administration against Prof Thorat Committee

The Prof Thorat Committee, before starting its investigation, sought the help of the Director of AIIMS and administration to arrange for the students, faculty and other staff to meet the members of the committee.

The members met directly with the Director and requested to display notices informing the students about the committee and the place of meeting for interaction on notice boards. However, to its utter surprise, the committee did not receive any response from the students and faculties on the stipulated date and time.

Later it found out that its plea was completely ignored by AIIMS administration and the Dalit and Adivasi students, faculty members were not even informed about the Committee.

So hostile was AIIMS administration, particularly its Director P Venugopal, towards any probe on the caste-discrimination in its campus that he earlier, quite arrogantly, had refused to even respond to the written notice sent by top government official from higher education department asking for a status report on the cases of caste-discrimination.

According to a news report carried by The Times of India, a National English Daily, on Nov 14, 2006, written by Manoj Mitta -

When the then higher education secretary Sudeep Banerjee asked AIIMS director P Venugopal in writing on September 26 for a status report on the reported humiliation of Dalit and tribal students in the premier medical college, he did not reply at all.

When the government appointed a three-member committee under UGC chairman Sukha Dev Thorat on September 13 to probe untouchability in AIIMS, Venugopal did not allow the panel to put up notices on the campus inviting aggrieved persons to come forward with evidence.

Manoj Mitta further writes -

The vice-president of National Board of Examinations, Shyam Prasad, who is part of the Thorat committee probing caste discrimination in AIIMS, alleged that Venugopal was not providing the “required cooperation” to the panel to discharge its function.

The administration, for instance, disregarded the committee’s request to put up its notices on the campus. Those who still approached the Thorat committee revealed that they were being “dissuaded” by others from coming out with their tale, said Prasad at the institute body meeting.

As a result, the Thorat Committee has not been able to submit its report although it was supposed to give its findings by October 13.

Due to this hostility and complete non-cooperation shown by AIIMS administration, Prof Thorat committee had to finally contact the students directly and was forced to initiate its proceedings outside the premises of the AIIMS.

In its report the committee clearly mentions this on page number 8 –

To verify the complaint, of notice not being displayed by the authority, the Chairman and one of the members visited AIIMS and discovered that the notices were not displayed on notice boards at prominent places, which reflect the non-cooperation of the authority with the Committee, at least in the matter of displaying the notice on the board.

It had earlier been given out that some of the students who had complained were harassed by the authority. Hence, there was a general fear among the students to meet this committee against the wishes of the administration. Therefore the committee decided on the method of direct contact and examination outside the premises of the AIIMS.

It is indeed very shocking to realize that a government institution that is completely funded by public money was so blatantly refusing to heed to the Government of India and was not willing to cooperate with a committee that was instituted by the government itself to probe something that so violently violate the Indian Constitution that is the caste discrimination perpetrated on a section of its own students.

Caste discrimination by AIIMS Faculties

In AIIMS, examination system consists both of summative examination and internal assessment. The internal assessments comprise 50 percent of all marks in a final examination. Given that half of the assessment is through internal assessment and that it is done by the concern teachers, there is a potential and scope for faculty to misuse this privilege, if he/she wishes to do so.

Prof Thorat Committee tried to get information on the experiences of SC and ST students with AIIMS faculties through a survey and personal interviews.

On page 19 of its report, the Committee mentions –

In survey, the questions were asked, whether SC/ST students face discrimination in one to one teaching session, laboratories and practical demonstrations and the extent of consultation with teachers by SC/ST students and the general problems faced by them. Besides we also talked to a cross section of students through personal discussions/interviews.

While deposing before the committee, an overwhelming majority of Dalit and Adivasi students spoke about the lack of consultation and interaction with their teachers and narrated on how they completely avoided students from particular social background while teaching.

On page 20, the Committee writes –

It emerged from these responses that the SC/ST students do not receive the kind of support that the other students received from their teachers. Non-cooperation is experienced by students in various ways. Given the dependence of students on teachers for learning and skill, the lack of adequate support to the SC/ST reflect in performance and psychological problems, which further leads to lower performance and frequent failure.    

Apart from complete apathy shown by the faculties in supporting SC and ST students in their studies, they also discriminate these students in one to one teaching session in the labs, in practical demonstrations and while evaluating their theory papers.

About 88 percent of Dalit and Adivasi students, in their responses to Prof Thorat Committee, told that the teachers do not give them marks that they deserve in written exams and their papers are not examined properly.

The similar fate awaits them in practical and viva voice exams. The students alleged that during practical and viva voice, the discrimination is quite blatant and open. About 92 percent of SC and ST students who deposed before the Committee mentioned about casteist behaviours of faculties and told of being routinely humiliated in practicals and viva exams.

84 percent of the SC and ST student respondents reported that the examiners had asked about the caste background of the students either directly or indirectly and their grades were affected because of it.

Personal testimonies of Dalit and Adivasi students on the discriminatory behaviours of AIIMS faculties

The Committee report carries many personal testimonies from Dalit and Adivasi students on this. Two of them are as follows:

Case I (Page 23 of the report)

After the final professional examination, one of the professors asked me as to which place I came from. I told him that, I am from Ghaziabad. In front of a senior resident (doing DM in IRCH), he said that, this fellow is a bad character (badmas) and he need to be stopped from clearing the examinations. Thereafter I was continuously failed in medicine. I may mention that I had never failed in that subject during the preceding three semesters. I had also scored 60 percent marks in this course in pre-final examination.

When I checked my question paper, I felt that nobody had probably checked my examination copy. Then I repeated this examination after six months in which I again failed and also failed in subsequent examination. I kept on giving examination for next one year and finally cleared after one year. In the end I passed and cleared four papers including this paper in one attempt. This was possible because the concern doctor had gone on a leave and the examination was taken by another faculty. The repeated failure had damaged my image and affected me psychology.

Case II (Page 23-24 of the report)

The students belonging to reserve category are failed always. Last year no scheduled caste students were allowed to clear in first year final professional examination. For instance Sujo had got 70 percent in 1^st professional and 55 percent in 2^nd professional examination, but was not cleared in last professional examination. Due to this he suffered from mental depression and received psychological treatment.

Many students from first year were not cleared in the final examination. In fact those who did well in earlier examinations were kept hanging in last examination. It appeared that by not clearing the deserving SC and ST students, the institute used them as buffer, under the pretension that in any case nobody will raise any objection as there is stereotype about the under-performance of reserved category students.

Reflecting on the horrific experiences of SC and ST students and rampant discrimination by AIIMS faculty members, the committee observes on page 26 -

… the problem seems to be deep rooted. This relates to the very attitude of some high caste teachers, if not all, who carry with them the attitude of non-cooperation, and at times of contempt, which results in differential treatment towards SC/ST students.  

The AIIMS authority needs to address this issue more carefully. This probably requires some education to make the faculty of AIIMS more sensitive to the problems of SC/ST students and their responsibility to be supportive.

Denial by the faculty will not serve the purpose. If the SC/ST students feel differently, in that situation, there is a need for open dialogue with them in a non-intimidatory environment and come with some understanding to build confidence in the system.

Problems faced by Dalit and Adivasi Students in Hostels

On page 30, the Prof Thorat committee observes –

There were reports in the press that over a period of time a social division has emerged particularly between the SC/ST students and other students, and it has accelerated in the wake of anti-reservation agitations on the AIIMS campus Based on the statements by the students and some faculty, the media reported that this increasing caste division has reflected in segregation in (a) allocation of rooms in the hostels (b) in sharing, dining facilities (c) associated living (d)participation in cultural events and (e) games.

We used two methods to capture these aspects. As mentioned above, we canvassed a questioner and received responses from twenty five students. We also interviewed students, who were willing to share their experiences. The committee visited these hostels and met students in indicated areas. Their testimonies are also recorded. The identity of the students is, however, protected.

One of the media reports that was quoted by Prof Thorat committee to initiate the probe into caste-discrimination suffered by Dalit and Adivasi students by fellow ‘upper’ caste students was the one carried by The Telegraph on July 05, 2006 by Charu Sudan Kasturi that clearly mentions 22 SC/ST students being forced to change their rooms to live in ‘ghetto’ after suffering from lots of threats, abuses, physical violence and humiliations.

Ghetto in medical hostel – Quota students in AIIMS allege being driven into a corner

By CHARU SUDAN KASTURI, The Telegraph, July 05, 2006

New Delhi, July 4: Parts of All India Institute of Medical Sciences hostels are turning into SC/ST ghettos. Reserved category students said they were being “hunted out of the remaining rooms” by upper-caste students and driven to two floors of the hostels.

'Fuck off from this wing" engraved on room 49, (Hostel1)

An engraved message on the door of Room No. 49 (Hostel 1) bears testimony to their concern. The inscription, spiced with abusive language, asks the room’s occupant Umakant a scheduled caste student to “get out of this (hostel) wing”.

With almost half the reserved category students since seeking reallocation of their rooms, the message seems to have worked.

The top floors of Hostel No. 4 and 5 of the country’s premier medical school have 32 rooms in all, of which 27 are occupied by SC/ST students. Of the 250 students at the institute, 55 are SC/ST.

Hostel records show that 22 of the students currently in the “ghetto” moved there only in the wake of the surcharged atmosphere of the anti-reservation agitation that started with the human resource development ministry unveiling plans for a quota for the Other Backward Classes. “Many more want to shift there but cannot because there aren’t enough rooms for everyone,” said a student.

AIIMS authorities said they would take “necessary action”.

Sub-dean Dr Sunil Chumber said he had himself faced discrimination during his college years. “My room was broken into, and things destroyed, because I came from a reserved category,” he said.

The SC/ST students said they were scared of the consequences of their identities becoming known for speaking out against discrimination.

A senior resident doctor, who belongs to the scheduled castes, said: “We are so scared here because the director (P. Venugopal) himself is supporting them (the anti-quota agitators). We have nowhere to go to complain.”

Resident Doctors’ Association president Dr Vinod Patro, however, said there was “no discrimination on the AIIMS campus”. “It is a figment of their imagination,” Patro, who has been leading the anti-reservation agitation at AIIMS, said.

Some SC/ST students alleged that to keep them from revealing the discrimination, they were often “failed in examinations”, which acted as a threat.

“Every year on an average five of the 11 reserved category students are held back,” a resident doctor said, citing his own case, where he was one of those failed in the first year.

AIIMS rules say a student who fails twice over the five years of study cannot pursue his or her post-graduation.

The students said that for fear of their careers being destroyed they did not want to “get into the bad books of the authorities”.

“The students have no choice but to bear this humiliation quietly and pass out in five years,” said Dr Vikas Bajpai of the Medicos’ Forum for Equal Opportunity, a pro-reservation group.

Despite many such news reports from national dailies, the AIIMS administration absolutely did nothing on this and dismissed the issue with utter disdain by citing that these students changed their room due to ‘seepage, disturbance from TV rooms’ etc.

In a letter issued by AIIIMS, Hostel Section (dated 03/08/06) [signed by Mrs K. Dhaka (Sr Warden), Prof S. Datta Gupta (Dy Suptd Hostels), Prof J.S. Titiyal (Dy Suptd Hostels), Dr. S.S. Kale (Dy Suptd Hostels), Dr. Minati Chowdhury (Dy Suptd Hostels), Prof G.K. Rath (Suptd of Hostels) and the Director, AIIMS] merely mentions this and closed the case for ever -

During last one week we have gone into the details of various students asking for change of rooms in different under-graduate gents hostels. 29 students have requested for the change. It may be mentioned that majority of the requests were due to seepage, disturbance from adjacent TV rooms, staircases, mess etc and health problems.  

After meeting with concerned students and visiting the hostels, Prof Thorat committee found out that 29 SC and ST students have shifted to the top two floors of hostels 4 and 5 leading to segregation on caste line. These students were forced to shift to these hostels by a sustained pressure in the form of humiliation, abuse and even violence by the ‘upper’ caste students.

The committee recorded testimonies of the concerned students and has provided the transcripts in the annexure with its reports.

One of the transcripts of such testimonies (Annexure 3.2, page 7) belongs to the above case that clearly debunks the reasons given by the AIIMS administration for Dalit students shifting their rooms due to ‘seepage’ etc and tells us clearly on what was happening inside AIIMS hostels with the Dalit students.

Some parts of that transcript is posted below.

What are your experiences here please tell us?

My room was in shambles. So I shifted my room to 1 UG hostel but in 4-5 days my room started getting locked.

For how long it was locked?

Someone would lock it and go and then I will call my friends to get it unbolted. This continued for some time and in weekends I will go to home.

On one Saturday I had gone home and when I came back on Sunday evening a lot of abusive words were written on my door/

What was written?

It was written ‘Fuck off from this wing –bastard leave this wing’.

Did you complain?

I complained to the office in Hostel section, gave a written complaint.

Then?

There was no action. Then I went to them. Then they were called and asked why they have done this. No other action was taken.

Did they know who had done it?

I had mentioned the boys whom I suspected. I had told the probability of these boys being the culprits.

Even then they took no action?

No action was taken.

So then you were compelled to shift here?

Yes. There was always tension there … could not study

Are Dalits here more in numbers?

Yes. There are many.

Was there any physical violence?

Yes, physical violence was present when I had gone to complain again. They came to my room, when I was eating my food and manhandled me. They caught my collar and pushed me onto the bed, sir.

Was it because you had complained?

Yes sir.

Did you inform this to the administration?

Yes sir.

In writing?

Yes sir.

After that what did they do? No action was taken.

How many students are there who have similar experiences?

There are many junior students. All of them have to face all this in different ways.

Now read what AIIMS did in this issue -

The administration called up the culprits and ‘amicably’ settled the issue by making a ‘grand’ and ‘magnanimous’ gesture of asking the victim to ‘shake hands’ with the culprits, asking the hostel secretary to assure that he would ‘ensure continued friendship between them’ and ‘allowing’ the Dalit student to shift his room.

Given below are the official minutes of the meeting held in the Hostel Officer (Room No. 13) at 3.00 pm on 21^st April 2006.

All India Institute of Medical Sciences

Hostel Section

F. No 14 – 10/2006/HOSTEL                                                                         Dated 21.04.2006

Minutes

Mr Umakant, resident of room no – 49, hostel no 1, had complained (letter dated 17.04.06) regarding “abusive and threatening note” written on the door of his room. This matter was verified by the hostel section through the concerned Junior Warden. Mr Umakant mentioned the names of two students: Mr Amol Raheja and Mr Nishant Goyal as the likely suspects.

The following officials attended the meeting.

1.       Prof G.K. Rath (Supdt of Hostels)
2.       Dr. S. S. Kale (Dy Suptd of Hostels)
3.       Dr S. Datta Gupta (Dy Suptd of Hostels)
4.       Mrs Bhupinder Paul (Dy Suptd of Hostels)
5.       Mrs Krishna Dhaka (Sr. Warden Hostels)

In addition, the following students were called and were present during the meeting.

1.       Mr. Tarique Zaman (Hostel Secy)
2.       Mr Umakant
3.       Mr Sushant Swaroop Das
4.       Mr Amol Raheja
5.       Mr Nishant Goyal

During the meeting Mr Umakant also intimated that his room was bolted from outside on this morning (21^st April, 2006). This prevented him from attending his classes. Mr Nishant Goyal also complained that even his room and that of Mr. Amol Raheja was bolted from outside around the same time. When their rooms were opened by their friends, Mr Umakant and Mr Nishant Goyal had an altercation with each other. Both accused one another for bolting the rooms.

The students were reminded of their duties, adherence to discipline tolerance towards each other and were told to concentrate on their studies. Although there was no proof that Mr Amol and Mr Nishant had written the note on the door, based on the complaint and incident on that morning they were instructed to refrain from committing such acts in future.

A stern warning was given and the hostel secretary was intimated that the institution would neither tolerate nor condone or allow any such acts of indiscipline. The guilty would be severely dealt with.

The matter was amicably settled with Mr Nishant and Mr Amol giving in writing that such incident would not recur and Mr Umakant allowed to shift to his earlier room (Hostel 2, Room 43).

In the end Mr Umakant, Mr Amol and Mr Nishant shook hands with each other. Mr Tarique Zaman (Hostel Secy) assured that he will ensure continued friendship between Mr Umakant, Mr Nishant Goyal and Mr Amol Raheja.

(Signed by all the officials mentioned above)

So ‘amicably’ was this issue settled and so ‘severe’ was the punishment of making accused ‘shake hands with the victim’ that just coming back from the above meeting, they again went to the room of the Dalit student and physically assaulted him. The above Dalit student narrated his pains before Prof Thorat Committee just few months after these incidents.

The ghettoisation, physical violence, abuses against SC and ST students by fellow ‘upper’ caste students is a norm in AIIMS and has an old history (the above incident happened in April 2006) but its pace gathered momentum during the anti-reservation protests by ‘upper’ caste students that started in AIIMS from 13^th May 2006.

Many Dalit and Adivasi students suffered physical violence, abusive comments and other forms of victimisation during this period that has also been well documented by Prof Thorat Committee. Despite the numerous complains of caste-harassment by Dalit and Adivasi students, no action was ever taken by the AIIMS administration.

In some such cases, the AIIMS administration did form investigating committees but were happy settling the cases ‘amicably’ without ever giving any punishment to the guilty, just like in the case of Mr Umakant mentioned above.

These internal committees used direct threats, pressure tactics to force our students to take back their complaints and even tried to scare the complainants about the ‘possible violent repercussions from the accused’ if any action was taken against them.

Given below is a letter written to the Director, AIIMS by three Dalit and Adivasi students on their complete lack of confidence in the committee for addressing complaints regarding caste discrimination  (Annexure 3.1 M, Prof Thorat Committee report) -

To,

The Director

AIIMS, New Delhi

Date: 4^th September, 2006

Sub: Loss of confidence in the committee for addressing complaints regarding caste discrimination

Respected sir,

We the undersigned want to bring it into your attention that the committee appointed to look into the complaints regarding ongoing caste discrimination in the campus is totally biased and we have lost faith in the integrity of the committee regarding redressal of the complaints.

First of all, the committee has been inefficient in taking appropriate action despite having promised us a time bound action course. This has been done intentionally as it is evident from their proceedings while hearing the issue.

Secondly, excessive pressure tactics are being used against us to take back our complaints and strike a compromise, instead of transparent enquiry into the matter.

Finally things got beyond our modesty when a committee member passed a statement as “… even if any action is taken against the accused, how that will assure you that the accused would not resort to physical means …”

The entire above mentioned have led to complete loss of faith in the committee as the committee is biased and is clearly favouring the accused. Kindly take appropriate action regarding the issue.

Yours faithfully

(Signed by 3 Dalit and Adivasi students)

Ragging and Caste

Even though ragging is officially banned in the AIIMS, there appears to be a one month period of unofficial ragging to which the administration turns a blind eye. Ragging in AIIMS has serious caste overtones and much severe forms of humiliation including physical assault, open casteist abuses are pretty common against new entrants from SC and ST students in AIIMS.

The Prof Thorat Committee observes (page 36) –

To a question, whether you have faced caste based ragging in the hostel, all SC and ST students answered in positive. It appeared that humiliation of SC and ST students based on caste background is fairly open.

The Committee provides many transcripts of interviews of Dalit and Adivasi students conducted on the issue of problems faced by the new entrants in AIIMS from these categories including ragging. Along with the interviews, the committee also provides many written testimonies of the students in annexure 3.1 and 3.2.

Some of these are as follows -

I.       Excerpts from the transcripts of the interviews

1 – They used to call us to their rooms and order us – Tell ten reasons why you should get reservation, why you don’t deserve to be in AIIMS.

If you don’t tell then we will beat you. We will lock you.

There were some cases where rooms were locked.

Lots of abusive words were written outside someone’s room.

Whose?

Balmukund Bharti

Which room is that?

That is in the second hostel.

2. Sir, the general perception is that those who are lower caste, those who are from reserved category are taken on humanitarian ground.

The extent of discrimination is such for boys from lower castes, if anyone associates with them, he is also neglected by his group with him.

During ragging time it is instilled into the minds of all. Everything starts from there only.

You are this. And to treat them as such.

We are here and you are here from reservation and should not be here.

During ragging they (‘upper’ caste freshers) are made to sit higher on the chairs/beds.

They tell you, ‘you have not come through merit but through reservation’. So they receive differential treatment.

Basically students from reserved category also don’t fight back and that is the reason no punitive action has been taken. They have seen the trend.

The trend is that, they have to take the viva voice.

If you complain, in a roundabout way the problems come back to you. 

Most teachers have preformed mindset. It is already formed. It is bound to happen. You can pick up any results and examine them, students from reserved category are failed often.

We know that we have done a very good paper but we are still failed.

We are treated as buffer. Can’t pass everyone that is why we are hanged because we come from reservation.

3. Sir, there was one of my batch mate. In 2003 there was a fight.

It was caste-based. He was severely injured in that.

We went to the SC-ST chairman. We went to many of the leaders – all the places that we could reach.

The decision which was taken by then director was very strange. He said that we will rusticate all including the one who was beaten and was near to death.

Then we had to accept to take back the complaint. Hence no one was punished.

II. Excerpts from written testimonies

1. I, (name), MBBS student at AIIMS batch 2002, want to tell you about the wrath of caste-discrimination faced by me in this institute. Sir, the caste discrimination started from the very first day I entered the hostel.

I was beaten up, humiliated on my caste and mentally tortured. Even my batch mates who belong to upper caste used to pass abusive comments on my caste.

 The wing mates in my hostel even don’t want to talk to me and when I came in this room i.e. 3/45, they wrote on my door, “Fuck off from this wing, nobody likes you”.

 They did not even allow me to use the carom board which was for all the students and they wrote a note, “Everybody can use this carom except 3/45”.

 This is not the only case but many of my friends who belong to the SC and ST face caste discrimination in many ways.

2.  Sir, this is to inform you that, I (name), am AIIMS UG 1^st year MBBS student. Through this letter I want to bring to your notice the caste-based discrimination faced by me during the initial period, in the institute.

In the initial period I was segregated from the class by students of higher caste and my room was getting locked sometime by seniors from higher caste.

Even during the ragging period we were ragged separately and our ragging is more severe as compared to our fellow student of general category.

3.  I (name), UG student of 1^st year MMBS at AIIMS, did not stay in the hostel for the first month (due to ragging). I joined the hostel in September and from the day I joined, my room was locked from outside by some general category students. Every day I have to call my friend (name) to open my room.

After few days, his room also started getting locked. Then abusing started.  We were abused in the name of caste in groups and when were alone.

After 5 days of joining my hostel, one senior Shrey Modi (5^th semester) came to my room and threatened me for leaving the room and said that if I don’t do then they will torture me in future too.

On 6^th September, in the evening, some seniors named Nikhil Gupta, Anand Venkatraman, Cherriyan, Nitin Mishra, Gandharv Goyal, Sanjeev S. Nagpal came to my friend’s (name) room and threatened us for physical torture.

On next day we complained against the guilty to director and we were assured for action within 24 hours but nothing was done and our names were disclosed. The guilty, then, started trying for compromise.

They threatened us for taking back complain. They started coming in groups to get our sign that they haven’t done anything.

Even President of Student Union, AIIMS, came and said to change our application from caste-based discrimination to non-ragging based discrimination otherwise pulse will not happen. But pulse happened in normal way.

Rooms were also locked during pulse. Then a committee was formed by the Director having members – TD Dogra, Dr Bir Singh, Dr Rani Kumar – but this committee didn’t give any positive response and also tried for compromise.

Till now 2 months have gone and no action has been taken till now.

Sir, I request you to please take some necessary action to save us from such torture and humiliation.

Discrimination in Mess and Sports

The sufferings of the Dalit and Adivasi students in AIIMS do not end with the discriminatory behaviour of faculties, abuses and violence from the fellow ‘upper’ caste students but in true sense of apartheid extend even in hostel mess and sports ground.

Deposing before the committee, the SC and ST students narrated on how they are not allowed to even enter into some messes that are exclusively used by ‘upper’ caste students and also have to suffer from abuses and physical violence, if they try their hand in certain sports.

The committee observed (page 33) –

There are two categories of messes for the dining of students – general messes and the private messes. The private messes offer greater variety of food and are also more expensive. While the general messes are open to the reserved categories, the SC/ST students faced restrictions in becoming a member and to have access to the private messes.  About 76 percent of SC and ST student respondents mentioned that they face restrictions on the joining the private messes.

The sports grounds are also not left untouched by caste virus. In one of the recorded interviews, a Dalit students mentions -

“They have formed a group. They play Basketball. In the beginning from our batch, one boy went to play with them. He received such a treatment…a hostile treatment. They have Basketball; we play Volleyball (laughs)”.

The committee writes in its report (page 36) –

Basketball is the game exclusively for the general category students. Volleyball and Football belongs to reserved category students. The students were asked whether they faced discrimination in various games. About 88 percent mentioned that they do face discrimination in access to Basketball game followed by 60 percent in cricket.

________________________________

Towards our efforts in exposing rampant caste-discrimination that is prevalent against Dalit and Adivasi students, in country’s premier institutions, we are uploading Prof Thorat committee’s report on AIIMS, New Delhi.

The committee was set up by Government of India, in September 2006, to enquire into allegations of differential treatment of SC and ST students in the above campus.

It is probably the first effort in Independent India to probe into the kind of caste discrimination suffered by our students in any institution of higher learning and therefore its report is a very important document for us to understand the nature of caste-discrimination and its impact, not only in AIIMS but in other institutions of higher learning too.

The committee came with a report, on 5th May, 2007, that brought out the horrors of caste-discrimination suffered at every level not only by the students but also by handful of SC and ST faculties in the Institute that is considered to be one of the country’s premier educational institutions.

It is very unfortunate that despite its scathing report with ample evidences on caste discrimination against our students by much hostile ‘upper’ caste faculty members, students and AIIMS administrators, the government did nothing.

For last four years the Government of India has singularly failed to initiate any action on its part to punish the perpetrators or implement any of the recommendations given by Prof Thorat committee – a committee that was instituted by the Government of India itself.

• In Dalit student suicides, the death of merit, The Hindu, (New Delhi, May 8, 2011)
• Death of merit, and of a family’s dreams, Hindustan Times, (Chandigarh, May 10,2011)
• Icarus goes to flying school:Why are Dalit students in India’s best educational institutions committing suicide?, (Tehelka Magazine, Vol 8, Issue 20, Dated 21 May 2011)
• Les dalits ne sont pas les bienvenus dans les grandes écoles indiennes (Dated May, 19, 2011)
• India education: Dalit student suicide, Global Post (May 24, 2011)
• A Dissonance In Saraswati’s Divine Veena:The spectre of caste prejudice lingers on even in our most prized institutions, OUTLOOK Magazine, June 27, 2011

The Hindu, (New Delhi, May 8, 2011)

In Dalit student suicides, the death of merit

by Vidya Subrahmaniam

He killed himself in his college library, unable to bear the insults and taunts. The suicide note recovered from his coat pocket charged his Head of the Department (HOD) with deliberately failing him and threatening to fail him over and over. Seven months later, a three-member group of senior professors re-evaluated his answer sheet and found that he had in fact passed the test.

Medical student Jaspreet Singh, a Dalit by birth, wanted nothing more than to become a doctor. Tragically, he fulfilled his ambition posthumously. A year later, his young sister, a student of Bachelor of Computer Application, also committed suicide, heartbroken at the injustice done to her brother.

Shocking details about the January 2008 suicide of the Chandigarh-based student have emerged following recent investigations by Insight Foundation, a Dalit-Adivasi student group that has compiled a list of 18 suicides by Dalit students studying in reputed institutions of higher education across India in the past four years.

The Foundation has also uploaded two documentaries onto YouTube, titled “The death of merit” — one on Jaspreet and the other on Bal Mukund, a Dalit student from Uttar Pradesh, who studied at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and committed suicide in March 2010.

Jaspreet was in the final year at the Government Medical College in Chandigarh. He was an excellent student throughout, and had never failed in any subject until he reached the fifth and final year.

Beginning of ordeal

This is when his ordeal began. His HOD told him that he might have entered medical college using his Scheduled Caste certificate but he would not go out with a degree. The professor failed him in Community Medicine, a crucial subject, and told him, according to the suicide note, that he will not let him pass.

Jaspreet had set his heart on a MD degree from the prestigious Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh. The threat cut short that dream.

Jaspreet’s father, Charan Singh, told The Hindu: “I have no reason to live anymore. What more evidence do they want?”

Indeed, the evidence is clinching in this case. Jaspreet’s suicide note; a certificate affirming Jaspreet’s handwriting from the Directorate of Forensic Science, Ministry of Home Affairs, Shimla; testimonies from Jaspreet’s friends; and finally, the re-evaluation of the answer sheet by a three member body of doctors from PGI, Chandigarh.

All three doctors, Rajesh Kumar, Amarjeet Singh and Arun Kumar Aggrawal, specialised in Community Medicine – the subject in which Jaspreet was failed. Yet till date, no action has been taken against the guilty HOD or the college.

In Bal Mukund’s case, the AIIMS authorities seized on the fact that there was no suicide note. Their version was that Bal Mukund, who had attempted suicide once earlier, killed himself in depression.

But Bal Mukund’s parents plaintively ask: “Who and what drove him to depression? He had repeatedly told us that he was harassed because of his caste. He was about to change his name. He also wanted to settle abroad to escape the humiliation of being born a Dalit.”

When a Dalit or Adivasi student becomes an engineer, doctor, business graduate or scientist, it should be a cause of pride for not just the family or the community but for the entire nation. Instead, why do our nation and its educational institutions reward their merit with discrimination, humiliation, violence and death?

In our efforts to document caste-based discrimination prevalent in Indian higher education system resulting in large number of suicides of Dalit students in Indian campuses we have produced and uploaded two documentaries on two different cases of Dalit students’ suicides in India’s premier institutions.

Documentaries 

• Dr. Jaspreet Singh: The Death of Merit

Dr Jaspreet Singh, 22 years,a student of Final Year, MBBS at Government Medical College, Chandigarh committed suicide on 27th Jan, 2008.

• Dr. Balmukund Bharti: The Death of Merit

On March 3rd, 2010, another Dalit, Balmukund Bharti, final year MBBS student from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi committed suicide.

Read More

• List of Dalit students committing suicides in India’s Premier Educational Institutions, (click here)
• Report of Prof Thorat Committee on Caste Discrimination in AIIMS, New Delhi, (click here)
• Report on Caste Discrimination in IIT Delhi,(click here)
• An article ‘On Suicides, Caste and Higher Education‘,  (click here)

Media Coverage 

• In Dalit student suicides, the death of merit, The Hindu, (May 8, 2011)
• Death of merit, and of a family’s dreams, Hindustan Times, (May 10,2011)
• Icarus goes to flying school:Why are Dalit students in India’s best educational institutions committing suicide?, Tehelka Magazine (Vol 8, Issue 20, 21 May 2011)
• Les dalits ne sont pas les bienvenus dans les grandes écoles indiennes, inde.aujourdhuilemonde.com (May 19, 2011)
• India education: Dalit student suicide, Global Post (May 24, 2011)
• A Dissonance In Saraswati’s Divine Veena:The spectre of caste prejudice lingers on even in our most prized institutions, OUTLOOK Magazine, June 27, 2011

One of the earlier and relatively well-known case is of Chuni Kotal, a tribal woman, first woman graduate among her tribe of the Lodha Shavars, who committed suicide on August 16, 1992, due to continuous caste-based harassment and discrimination by one of her Professor, Falguni Chakarvarti, at Vidyasagar University, Medinapur, West Bengal. She was pursuing her MA in Anthropology.

Her death united the Lodha Shabar community in protest, and became the focal point of a movement spearheaded by the Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha questioning the liberal credentials of Bengali society. Mahasweta Devi wrote about her in Byadhkhanda (1994) and The Book of the Hunter (2002).

Given below are the excerpts from a commentary on Chuni Kotal’s suicide, ‘Story of Chuni Kotal‘, written by Mahasveta Devi that was published in Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), August 29, 1992, just 13 days after her suicide.

The complete article can be accessed at http://www.cscsarchive.org

Story of Chuni Kotal

Mahasveta Devi

Chuni Kotal’s suicide has ripped the mask off the face of West Bengal under Left Front rule: the caste prejudice and persecution and the government callous indifference

Chuni Kotal, a girl of 27, from the denotified Lodha tribe, the first graduate woman among the Lodha Savara and Kheria Savara of West Bengal, hanged herself on August 16, at her husband’s one room residence in Kharagpur, a railway town.

The reasons that led Chuni, a unique woman, to take her own life, are palpable ones and she “became a victim of sheer injustice and callousness of the university authorities and the West Bengal government” (The Statesman, 23/08/1992)

Chuni was appointed a Lodha social worker in 1983 at Jhargram ITDP office. From childhood she had starved , worked in the fields, had had no money to purchase books, yet doggedly she continued to study.

As a social worker she cycled 20-25 kms a day and made extensive surveys of the Lodha villages. In 1985, she graduated. In 1987, she was appointed suprintendent of Rani Shiromani SC and ST girls’ hostel at Medinapur.

Her working hours were 24 hours a day and working days were 365. No holidays, no break. If she had to leave the hostel for a few hours or a day, she had to take prior permission from the office which was very unsympathetic to her.

On one occasion her ailing father came from the village and had to stay in her room for one or two days as a hospital bed was not available. An officer of the district office accused her of entertaining men in her room.

Chuni felt suffocated in the job. Countless times she had come to Calcutta to Writer’s Building pleading for (a) transfer to her original job, or (b) better working conditions. The department remained brutally indifferent.

Matters became worse when Chuni enrolled her name with the local Vidyasagar University as an MA student in Anthropology.

Falguni Chakravarty, a male professor, from the very first day started abusing her as one coming from a criminal tribe, a low-born, who had no ‘right’ to study MA. The university authorities, the head of the department, did nothing about it.

This man was allowed to mark her ‘absent’ though she was present for days. And Chuni was debarred from sitting for examination for ‘irregular attendance’. She lost one year. The district office made life hell for her for ‘leaving the hostel’ and going to study.

In West Bengal, after so many years of Left Front rule, the first woman graduate from a very backward tribe was openly abused because of her low-caste and birth and nothing was done about it. No one was ashamed. Only Chuni suffered.

The second time Chuni sat for exam. The professor gave her low marks. Thus she lost two years. In desperation, she complained and complained and, in 1991, the education minister ordered an enquiry commission which constituted of three principals from three district colleges.

All through this man was allowed to refer to the criminal nature of her tribe, abuse her. The commission just went to sleep.

On August 13 (just 3 days prior to her suicide), there was a seminar in the university. By that time Chuni knew where she stood. She had no hope that the enquiry commission would do justice to her and punish the ‘bhadra log’, the babu, who pointed to her low birth and low-caste relentlessly. She went to the university.

Thereafter, she weepingly told a few co-students, ” today in the seminar Falguni babu, quite off the context, refered to the Lodhas as thieves and robbers. In the corridor, he threatened me, I’ll see that you don’t sit for the examination in September. I am a Lodha. So I shouldn’t have dreamt of higher studies. I complained against the offenders, but they remain untouched. Unnecessarily I wasted two years, attended classes but was not allowed to sit for the examination” (Letter to the editor, Daily Bartoman, August 25, 1992)

By August 13, she had made up her mind. Death was the only way to escape the hunters. On 14th she went to her husband. They had married in a court in 1990, but due to her job had not been able to stay together.

Her husband is a Lodha youth who is a High School and works in the railways workshop. That Chuni was a graduate and he was not had never created any friction. They had been in love with each other from 1981. They were to leave for Chuni’s village, Gohaldohi, on the 16th to talk about formal reception, a community feast after marriage.

On the 16th he left for the workshop at 6.15 am. He returned at 10.45 am and found Chuni hanging.

Chuni’s death has revealed what West Bengal truly is. Brutal caste and class hostility and persecution has been allowed to continue. The government allowed the district babu to abuse her.  The university authorities did nothing to throw out the caste-baiter.

And the commission appointed by the government submitted its report three days after her death.

This documentary is second in the series of our efforts to document caste-based discrimination prevalent in Indian higher education system resulting in large number of suicides of Dalit students in Indian campuses.

It is based on the testimonies of parents and family members of Dr Jaspreet Singh, 22 years, who was a student of Final Year, MBBS at Government Medical College, Chandigarh. He committed suicide on 27th January, 2008, by hanging himself on the 5th floor of his college’s library.

In next few days, we are coming up with few more documentaries to expose the kind of caste-based hostility and harassment Dalit and Adivasi students have to suffer from the faculties, fellow students and administration in some of the country’s premier educational institutions. These documentaries are part of our efforts to make Indian educational system inclusive in real sense and free from caste-discrimination.

About the Documentary

Dr Jaspreet Singh (1987-2008) was a school topper and quite bright Dalit student, from a very humble background.

He used to clear all his papers without fail, in 4 years of his MBBS, till he met a professor whose criteria of merit was not Jaspreet’s performance but his ‘caste’.

After completing his MBBS from Government Medical College, Chandigarh, Dr Jaspreet wanted to become a surgeon. However his dreams were cut short by a professor who not only humiliated him on caste lines but failed him twice in the same paper and threatened to further keep failing him.

‘Do whatever you can do, I will make you to do your MBBS all over again‘ was the taunt Prof N.K. Goel, Head of Department, Community Medcine used to make to a final year student who, in his 4 years of MBBS, had cleared each and every paper without fail.

Tensed and much humiliated Jaspreet informed many other faculty members and friends about the casteist behaviour of Prof Goel and his fear of being failed once again but to no avail.

He was once again failed in the same paper by just one mark.

Finally he committed suicide in the college’s library leaving behind a suicide note mentioning the name of the professor and his casteist behaviour.

The college administration tried its best to pass this suicide off as one more case of ‘depressed’ Dalit student who could not ‘cope up’ with ‘rigrous academic pressure’.

The police, though, lodged an FIR but refused to act or apply SC/ST Atrocity (Prevention) Act despite the suicide note clearly mentioning about the caste-based harassment.

Only after the intervention of National Scheduled Caste Commission, police filed the case under this act and the answer sheet of Dr Jaspreet Singh were sent to a panel of 3 external examiners for re-evalutaion.

And Dr Jaspreet passed the exam, but after his death.

Parents of Dr Jaspreet Singh

An internal enquiry committee was set up by the college and that too also clearly pointed towards the casteist behaviour of Prof Goel that led Jaspreet to commit suicide.

However, despite all this including the suicide note, Prof Goel is still working as Head of Department, Community Medicine and has not been suspended even for a day and no discpilinary action what so ever has been taken till now, even after three years of Dr. Jaspreet’s death.

The tragedy with Jaspreet’s family did not end with his suicide.

Next year, in 2009, Jaspreet’s younger sister Harpreet Kaur, 20 years of age, also committed suicide on the day of ‘Raksha Bandhan’ after tying rakhi on the photograph of her brother. She was doing her Bachelors in Computer Applications (BCA) and went into severe depression after the death of her much beloved and only brother.

Two brilliant lives from the same family were snuffed out at one go by a casteist professor.

Three years after, his parents and two sisters are still fighting the case and waiting for justice, not only for their son, but like Dr Balmukund Bharti’s parents, for all other Dalit students so that they do not suffer the fate of Jaspreet.

• For the list of Dalit students committing suicide in last four years in India’s premier educational institutions, please click here.

• To read the report Caste Discrimination in IIT Delhi, please click here.

• To read the article ‘On Suicide, Caste and Higher Education, please click here.

• Watch our first documentary ‘The Death of Merit’ on the suicide of Dr. Balmukund Bharti (AIIMS, New Delhi) below.

Bal Mukund Bharti was determined to become a doctor. And his teachers were also very determined: ‘you’ll never pass MBBS’, they told him.

Bal Mukund didn’t give up, nor did his family. Father, mother, married sister, uncle, aunt– they were all determined to support him in his ardent journey, which was steadily converted into an uphill struggle by AIIMS, to become a doctor. They scraped, pooled together whatever meagre resources they could to send him to AIIMS.

Uncle says they invested everything they earned in his education. Sister who made only 2,500 rupees a month helped whenever father, who worked in a job which sometimes made him wait 3 long months for wages, couldn’t. It wasn’t a small dream; if realized, it could have become a source of hope and pride for many more people outside the immediate family.

As Bal Mukund’s proud father says, ‘he was the first one from our community to become a doctor in fifty years!’. Bal Mukund’s intelligence and superior scholastic record instilled that kind of confidence in the family, stoked such high hopes.

Imagine: the first doctor from a community in fifty years, or in two millennia, possibly. Also imagine Rakesh Sharma or Kalpana Chawla, people of the ‘wrong’ race, being told by the Russians or the Americans: ‘you’ll never go into space’.

But AIIMS was determined it would see Bal Mukund only as a ‘harijan’, as a person from the ‘wrong’ caste. Imagine history being snuffed out in the womb. That shouldn’t be very difficult to imagine if you step two years back into history and think of Senthil Kumar of the University of Hyderabad.

In the voices of Bal Mukund’s family, you hear echoes of all those stillborn voices and histories that didn’t find any listeners outside the families they left behind. Like Bal Mukund, Senthil was also a pioneer: first person from his family and his Panniandi community, traditionally associated with pig-rearing, to have registered for a Ph.D.

Like Bal Mukund, Shyam Kumar of Sarojini Institute of Engineering and Technology, Vijayawada, also came from a poor family. His parents, farm workers, couldn’t afford his ‘clothes, books and bus passes’ as the news reports say, even after he got a scholarship. Like Bal Mukund, Jaspreet of Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, was also hounded by those who were supposed to guide him. The echoes never stop.

Bal Mukund didn’t give up, even when, as his father remembers him lamenting more than once:  ’professor log humein like nahin karte’. Five professors, the family says. Five, not one lone casteist. But Bal Mukund didn’t give up.

Bal Mukund wasn’t a stranger to discrimination and hatred. He came from a village and a region where in workplaces and teashops, as his folks remind us in the video, a Dalit is always offered tea in disposable plastic cups while others drink from glass tumblers. The kind of place where a Dalit, in the wrong village, could not expect anyone to offer him a glass of water even if he’s dying of thirst.

Bal Mukund had probably not grown inured to prejudice and its various abusive forms, but he couldn’t give up. He had this spark in him that couldn’t be smothered. It took him to a Navodaya school first and then earned him a ‘certificate of merit from the President himself!’

The family still clings to that moment. But Bal Mukund didn’t stop there. In the year he had appeared for the AIIMS admission test, he had also taken three other entrance exams. And he had excelled in all four! ‘CPMT, IIT, AIIMS..’, his sister recalls all the challenges he had overcome.

Even now, his zest for learning, in the form of books packed in all nooks and shelves, further dwarfs his small home. He had started making preparations to take on the IAS a few weeks before he died. Bal Mukund couldn’t give up.

Does Bal Mukund seem like someone who couldn’t take ‘academic pressure’?

Some people might say, other kids too die in these elite institutions. Does that make any unnatural death there acceptable? Do these institutions need periodic ritual bloodletting to prove themselves meritorious in the public eye? Such irrational thinking seems to dominate the attitude of the administrative leadership manning these ‘scientific’ institutions, which seem incapable of serious introspection.

The simple, only relevant question they need to ask in this context is: why should there be any unnatural deaths, harassment of students in an educational institution? Eight students committed suicide in IIT-Kanpur in the last four years, three of them Dalits (going by information available until now). 3 of 8– wouldn’t you call that disproportionate, considering that figure is 3 or 4 times what it should be?

Bal Mukund wouldn’t give up, bowing down to academic pressure. He liked challenges, his whole career was marked by a continuous series of triumphs over them. It was AIIMS which did not like challenges like Bal Mukund Bharti.

They ‘tortured’ him, his family repeatedly says. They targeted him during practical exams. They’d fail him repeatedly in one exam– a paper he had never figured as challenging. They told him he’d never pass MBBS.

It seems like all of AIIMS had geared itself up for the challenge called Bal Mukund Bharti.

The amazing clarity of the family in understanding the causes behind Bal Mukund’s death: has it ever been spotted in the reams and reams of research on caste and Dalitness produced by India’s many ‘meritorious’ universities?

When Bal Mukund’s father says, ‘hum sab harijanon ko ek union banana chahiye’, wasn’t he making it plain that this is a problem that a lone Dalit can’t face single-handed? That what a harassed Dalit or Adivasi faces in those institutions of higher education is not one or a few individual tormentors but the institutions themselves, as persecutors? One needs unions to stand up against institutions and structural adversaries.

Bal Mukund’s sister reveals how acutely aware the family was of the fact that it was an institutionalised adversary they were up against. Every time her brother told them about the harassment in his college, they’d console him by saying: ‘you’ve only 4 more years..3 more years or just six more months for this to end’. As if he was serving a term in prison.

But Bal Mukund didn’t give up, even when he was driven to, probably, more stark isolation than he ever was in his village. Why would he talk of changing his caste, like it could be surgically excised from his body, otherwise?

His caste started haunting him from the very beginning of his term in AIIMS, when the teachers started probing his caste-lessness. He wanted to change his caste, his father says. Because it was the only complaint AIIMS had against him? But what you see in the news reports is that Bal Mukund suffered from ‘depression’, not caste-lessness.

If depression was the sole cause of his death, then suicide should claim the lives of at least a tenth of all humanity, because ‘depression’ is as common an ailment.

You hear the echoes again. Ajay Sree Chandra, Ph.D scholar of I.I.Sc was also accused of suffering from depression. So was G.Suman of IIT-Kanpur, who was also ‘depressed’ because he didn’t get a job. Like Bal Mukund, both had excellent scholastic records. Bahujan students who probed into Ajay’s death claim he was ‘terrorised’ by someone in his lab.

Ankita Veghda of a nursing college in Ahmedabad was also ‘stressed’, so she fell off the terrace of her hostel. But her parents point fingers at incessant ragging by seniors and an unsympathetic warden.

None of them gave up. It’s time the institutions they so trusted, so struggled to join, gave up their excuses.

Bal Mukund didn’t give up, but his family had to give up some of its dreams after he passed away. An insecure father, who calls Bal Mukund’s younger brother, at a college away from home, twice every day (in the morning and evening), says they’re content with only ‘chhoti vidya aur chhoti naukri’ now.

What more evidence do you require to understand how caste reduces people, emaciates them?

When the Indian students were attacked in Australia, who were the first to jump to the conclusion that it was ‘race’ which fueled the random violence, even before any substantive investigation had happened? Too many deaths have happened here, too much evidence has been ignored, too many excuses, in the name of causes, have been bandied around. No more, please.

Dr.Bal Mukund Bharti didn’t give up. He staged one last protest.

We salute you, Dr.Bharti.