Could a 2013 Court Order Have Prevented Rohith Vemula’s Suicide?

A 2013 Hyderabad High Court order laid out steps to address the issue of student suicide, why wasn’t it followed?

Rohith Vemula’s suicide has sparked a debate on the lack of support and empathy for first generation learners from marginalised communities.

But over two years ago, the High Court of Hyderabad had ordered that certain measures be taken in the wake of a high number of student suicides in the city.

In 2013, a group of teachers from three of Hyderabad’s biggest universities filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) with the High Court. The academics wanted the Court to intervene and take steps, after a spate of suicides involving students from marginalised communities.

No Support for First Generation Learners

There was the case of Senthil Kumar, a PhD student from Tamil Nadu at the Hyderabad Central University. Senthil consumed poison after he was not appointed an advisor for his doctorate. His parents were agricultural labourers and he was the first person in his village to enter a doctoral program.

Rajitha also chose to take her own life in 2011, after she was harassed by a classmate. She was a Dalit student getting her MA in political science from Osmania University. She had wanted to join the police forces.

Rajitha and Senthil were among at least 9 others who took their own lives between 2007 and 2013.

While it is impossible to establish a single “explanation” for any of these suicides, each of them has raised a number of structural problems that relate to the crisis that the universities are facing today. Failure has a specific meaning for these students. Due to many reasons, ‘discontinuing’ and going back home is not a viable option for poor, rural students, who may choose death over a future in which they must stare at their inability to provide for miserably poor families that have staked everything to educate them.

Excerpt from PIL No 106 filed at the Hyderabad High Court in 2013

The High Court of Hyderabad acted on the petition and ordered that steps be taken by the concerned universities including the Hyderabad Central University, Osmania University, the English and Foreign Languages University as well as the Union Ministry for Human Resource Development.

Short Term Measures Ignored, Long Term Solutions Forgotten

The High Court issued an order on April 30, 2013, demanding that the steps mentioned in the PIL should be acted upon. A meeting of representatives from the universities as well as from the HRD Ministry met at the NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad on June 22, 2013, to discuss “short term and long term measures to reduce student stress”.

Here are some of the measures they agreed on unanimously.

Short Term Measures

• Each instance of suicide should be investigated by an internal committee constituted by the university with representation from SC, ST, OBC and minority communities.
  
  
• In all cases of detention, suspension or expulsion, the university should refer the matter to a Students’ Grievance Committee before taking a decision on expulsion and decision.

Long Term Measures

• The universities should put in place a system of getting students’ feedback on teaching, student services and institutional infrastructure.
  
  
• All committees of the university should have external members of SC, ST, OBC and minority communities.
  

Needless to say, these measures have either not been implemented or been implemented badly. In Rohith Vemula’s case, for example, he asked the vice-chancellor repeatedly to investigate and examine the issue, namely, the Ambedkar Students’ Association’s (to which Rohith belonged) conflict with the ABVP.

His death is making national headlines, but could it have been prevented?

Why was the matter not referred to the Students’ Grievance Committee before he was suspended? Does the committee have representatives from marginalised groups like the High Court order demanded?

Rohith’s father is a security guard and his mother is an agricultural labourer who supplements her income with small-time tailoring jobs. The loss of the income from his fellowship, the stigma of being suspended and excluded and the loss of a promising life could have been avoided if the commitments made by the university in 2013 were honoured in letter and spirit.