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In Dalit student suicides, the death of merit
Vidya Subrahmaniam
Jaspreet Singh wanted nothing more than to become a doctor
'Bal Mukund wanted to settle abroad to escape humiliation of being born a Dalit'
New Delhi: 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."
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