Student Suicides Amid Private Management Fiefdoms

In the name of discipline and competitiveness, schools and higher-education centres run by private managements are increasingly becoming fiefdoms where student individuality is crushed—though there might be exceptions. Even for students who have been through a repressive schooling process, colleges offered a stepping stone to begin their journey as citizens who could hope to find their uniqueness. But, in recent years, colleges run by private managements are turning into extended versions of strict schools by imposing uniforms, confiscating mobile phones and moral policing.

Premam: Lost Paradise

The 2015 Malayalam movie, Premam, celebrated youthful emotions against the backdrop of a colourful and freedom-filled college campus. The film became a massive hit with cult following in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Teenagers and youths flooded the theatres, often watching it multiple times. They appeared to be seeking and celebrating their lost paradise on the silver screen. Because, by then, such an atmosphere on campus as depicted in the movie had primarily become limited to government colleges and a few government-aided colleges having liberal managements.

Now things have gone from bad to worse with the mushrooming of self-financing colleges, private “deemed” universities and bans on student politics in them, with the concurrence of court verdicts. Some of them brazenly welcome us with “politics-free” signboards along with plastic-free and ragging-free ones! The primary question is whether they ever consider themselves within the bounds of a democratic country and contemplate students as citizens who are entitled to take part in adult suffrage, let alone allowing organisational politics and student unions. The alarming increase in student suicides nationwide poses a few critical questions.

Centres of Learning or Management Fiefdoms?

The recent alleged suicide of 20-year-old Sradha Sathish, a food craft student in the Amal Jyoti College in Kanjirappally, Kerala, has stirred up a debate in this regard prompting the state government to come up with a grievance redressal mechanism to be implemented in college campuses. She was allegedly harassed by faculty as they confiscated her mobile phone for taking it out to check notifications during lab hours, and her parents were also alerted in this regard. Both the students and the parents of Sradha allege mental harassment by the authorities as the reason for her death.

The insensitivity of the management was severely criticised. It was as though they found her while she was still alive. A warden who accompanied them had, at first, told the doctors Sradha fainted. Only when they found marks on her neck did the warden reveal she had attempted suicide. They also kept students in the dark regarding the death and released a statement the next day. Even other hostel residents had to rely on outside sources to confirm their friend’s demise.

It is also apprehended that Sradha’s social media post about the college culminated in the alleged rebuke and confiscation of her phone. She had reportedly taken part in an online survey in which there was a hypothetical question about wanting to reverse something she did in her past, to which she answered that she would have chosen a different college.

Some students think this might be the actual trigger behind the vindictive action resorted to by the management. The incident resulted in massive student protests forcing the management to shut down the college indefinitely, and two State ministers had to reach there to pacify the angry students. The protest brought to the fore widespread complaints accusing the management of indulging in mental harassment, abusive language, slut shaming, chauvinist attitude, moral policing and whatnot.

If women students are found talking to male students, the manager would videograph them, obviously without consent, confiscate mobile phones and ID cards, and the parents would be notified of the same with sexual overtones. Female students are allegedly not even allowed to bathe or laugh after 8.30 pm at the hostel, let alone make phone calls. One of the primary demands of the students was the need for a student union body elected solely by them with no interference from the management.

Burning Memories of Jishnu Pranoy

Though student suicides are not rampant in Kerala, a few incidents have been reported of late. The death of Jishnu Pranoy, who was a student at the Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre at Pampady, Thrissur, and the consequent public outrage was the last time when we discussed the harrowing atmosphere prevailing in private educational institutions in the changed times. Jishnu was found hanging in the bathroom of his hostel room on the evening of 6 January 2017.

While the college authorities claimed he was caught copying in the exam and that was the reason behind the suicide, his family members and friends allege that the college authorities had implicated him in a false case after seizing his answer paper. They also allege that Jishnu, who had earlier organised protests in the college against the alleged high-handedness of the management, was brutally beaten up inside the ‘torture room’ of the college, which led to his death.

Based on a petition moved by Jishnu’s mother, Mahija, the Supreme Court directed CBI to probe the case. Though the CBI showed reluctance to investigate the case citing excess workload and that the case didn’t warrant a CBI investigation, the agency was forced to undertake it after being taken to task by the apex court. However, in the case, the CBI later gave a clean chit the chairman of the Nehru Group of Institutions.

In the charge-sheet submitted before the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in Ernakulam, the premier investigating agency said the engineering student had committed suicide, and there was no evidence to implicate the chairman in the death. However, the CBI levelled abetment to suicide charges against the college’s vice-principal and an assistant professor. However, his memories carry forward the burning issues raised by him and his friends.

Given the academic stress students undergo and management high-handedness, we cannot brush aside student suicides as isolated events, as it is likely to be the tip of an iceberg. The questions raised by Jishnu have been answered to an extent in the aftermath of Sradha’s death, as the government has announced the creation of an internal grievance redressal mechanism inclusive of student representatives and teachers from outside the institution.

Effective redressal of student grievances is the need of the hour since the students are often helpless to express their concerns when the management wields unfettered powers against them—including possible misuse of internal assessments. But then the managements will expectedly employ their clout to thwart even the present mechanism initiated by the government. It is where the conscience of society should step in to ensure the youth is not bullied by those who were meant to guide them.

The author is a lawyer practising in the High Court of Kerala. The views are personal.