Very tragic suicide of Dalit student who was expelled/suspended by Hyderabad university

Last updated on 19th Jan. 2016

The article, http://www.deccanchronicle.com/current-affairs/180116/hyderabad-university-student-ends-life.html, dated Jan 18th 2016, has his handwritten suicide note where he does not blame anybody else but himself. An extract from it:
I have no complaints on (about) anyone. It was always with myself I had problems. I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body. And I have become a monster. I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science. Like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.
--- end extract ---

What a terrible waste of life! As a former teacher in a deemed university in India I know how much pressure students come under if university or campus administrative authorities even threaten to take stern action against students (like expulsion/suspension). The threatened student's world comes apart. Perhaps this young man got into that sort of dark territory once he was suspended/expelled. His parents would be utterly distraught!

Disciplining students is such a tricky affair. If one goes very easy the students may land into bad habits. If one becomes very tough they may even commit suicide! It is not easy to be a teacher in a college/university, let me tell you, from experience. It must be ten times or a hundred times more difficult to be a top students administrator in a college/university like a principal/campus director or vice-chancellor. When the police come knocking on the college/campus or university doors after such an event happens, they knock straight on the doors of the college principal/campus director or the vice-chancellor of the university! In this case they will be questioning the vice-chancellor of the Hyderabad university.

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A USA based correspondent responded over email to the above post contents as follows (and was OK with public sharing of it):
I think that every student is under some pressure, and that every good student in every good university is under severe strain at some point of time during his/her university years. Students from less privileged backgrounds have less resources, knowledge, and support to fall back on. It can be very lonely to study in a city far from home. Thus, suicides happen. Many universities make an effort to prevent suicides, but it's hard to do and require resources (suicide hotlines, more supervisors, more non-pressure activities). I wondered about the high student to teacher ratio in Indian universities - there is little room for individual attention. Many US institutions have similar problems.
--- end USA based correspondent response ---

Today's (19th Jan. 2016) Hindu had a few articles (most of them short articles) on the matter, whose links I have given below:

1) Dalit student suicide: University missed warning signals, http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/dalit-student-suicide-university-missed-warning-signals/article8121690.ece

Ravi: The article states that the research scholar Dalit student who committed suicide on 17th Jan. 2016 had submitted a letter dated December 18th 2015 (to university administration, I guess; date of submission is not mentioned) where he asked the vice-chancellor to supply "a nice rope to the rooms of all Dalit students through the chief warden… or serve 10 mg of sodium azide to all the Dalit students at the time of admission." Note that he and a few other Dalit students were under expulsion from their hostels at that time.

Hmm. So the warning signals of threatened suicide were clearly there.

2) Activism integral to student life: Thorat, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/activism-integral-to-student-life-thorat/article8121791.ece.

Ravi: The expelled students were involved in a Dalit student activism group. The author of the above article, Prof. Sukhdeo Thorat, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhadeo_Thorat, is a former top Indian academic administrative body, University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman. If I recall correctly he is also from the Dalit community. I say this not in a casteist sense but just to inform readers about a relevant fact. I think it is truly wonderful to have Dalit community members achieve such high academic distinction and occupy such top Indian academic administration positions.

3) Dalit student suicide: Team sent to Hyderabad, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dalit-student-suicide-team-sent-to-hyderabad/article8121693.ece. The Union (federal) Human Resource Development ministry (in charge of education including higher education) sent a two member team to look into this suicide matter.

4) Dalit student suicide: Protest turns violent in Delhi, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dalit-student-suicide-protest-turns-violent-in-delhi/article8121694.ece. A small extract from it, "Scores of students on Monday staged a protest outside the HRD Ministry here (Ravi: Delhi) to vent their anger over the alleged suicide of a Dalit research scholar of Hyderabad Central University."

5) Dalit student suicide: TRS MP blames it on Labour Minister, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dalit-student-suicide-trs-mp-blames-it-on-labour-minister/article8121692.ece. The article has a member of parliament (at Delhi), who is the daughter of the chief minister of Telangana (Hyderabad city is administered by Telangana), say that a scuffle between a Dalit students group and another students group (in early Aug. 2015) got escalated due to a union minister writing to the vice-chancellor of the university and HRD union minister (at Delhi).

6) I have no role in this episode: Dattatreya, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/i-have-no-role-in-this-episode-dattatreya/article8121790.ece. The union labour minister denies involvement in the suicide matter. He says, "I have not been named in the suicide note. I have nothing to do with it. I just received a petition about activities in the UoH which I forwarded to the MHRD. I have no role in this episode". Ravi: UoH seems to be a reference to University of Hyderabad which also seems to be called Hyderabad Central University or Hyderabad University, and which seems to be the university where the suicide happened.

--- end articles in The Hindu today on the suicide matter ---

Ravi: I had no idea that the matter was so sensitive and that so much politics (rival student unions) was involved, and that this matter would become so big politically. Hmm. However, the underlying tragedy of a wasted life does not change no matter how politicised the matter gets now. Steps should be taken to avoid such tragedies in future.