Mumbai: A few years ago, Rameshbhai Solanki, a plumber from Ahmedabad, was watching the Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots on his television set at home with his son, Darshan, who harboured dreams of studying at one of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
Scenes in the film showing senior students ragging first-years on campus left both father and son scarred. “Yeh ladke nahi hain, yeh jaanwar hain (these are not boys, these are animals),” Rameshbhai recalls Darshan saying back then.
On Sunday afternoon, 18-year-old Darshan, a first-year BTech student at IIT Bombay, reportedly jumped to his death from his hostel building on campus, without leaving any suicide note.
Three days after his son’s death, Rameshbhai can’t help but wonder if Darshan had suffered harassment himself, especially as the Solankis belong to a Scheduled Caste (SC).
“He never said anything to me directly, but over the last couple of days, I have been finding out that he told my brother-in-law and my daughter that students from ‘lower’ castes are ridiculed and harassed by fellow students at the institute,” Rameshbhai, now 46, told ThePrint.
A student group, the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), has alleged that Darshan’s death was the result of the caste-based discrimination that many SC students suffer, with “first-years facing the most harassment in terms of anti-reservation sentiment”.
While the police have registered a case of accidental death, the APPSC has termed it an “institutional murder”.
However, IIT Bombay said in a statement Tuesday that it “strongly refutes” claims that Darshan’s death was caused by discrimination or that it was “institutional murder”.
“It is wrong to make such accusations when the police are still investigating the case. Based on initial inputs from friends, there is no indication that the student faced any such discrimination. We request that such unfounded allegations not be spread,” the statement read.
In a fresh statement Wednesday, the APPSC IIT Bombay demanded the resignation of the institute’s director, Subhasis Chaudhuri, in light of the Solanki family’s claim that Darshan had confided in them about caste-based discrimination on campus.
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‘Shy child who loved to study’
Living in Ahmedabad’s Maninagar neighbourhood, the Solanki family belongs to the Vankar sub-caste, who were traditionally weavers. Rameshbhai, who studied till the 10th standard, makes a modest living as a plumber, while his wife Tarlikaben is a homemaker.
Darshan’s sister, Jhanvi, was the first member of the family to go to college. She earned a Bachelor of Computer Application degree in Ahmedabad and is currently pursuing a master’s in the same field.
For the Solanki family, academics was the last thing they had to worry about when it came to Darshan.
Gautam Parmar, Darshan’s maternal uncle, told ThePrint: “Darshan was always at the top of his class at the local school here. We never had to look into his studies.”
Rameshbhai describes his son as a “quiet child” who didn’t have a lot of friends and didn’t speak a lot. He loved playing and watching cricket and losing himself in school textbooks.
“He only answered us to the point when we asked him something,” Rameshbhai said, adding that perhaps it was because of his quiet demeanour that Darshan didn’t open up to his family fully about possible caste discrimination on campus, or perhaps because of his father’s social standing.
“He probably thought, my father is just a labourer. He won’t be able to fight anyone. So he never mentioned anything to me. And whatever he said to his sister and my brother-in-law was also not specific to him,” Rameshbhai said.
“Darshan had told them that there is a lot of caste-based discrimination and harassment on campus, but he never specifically said he was the target. Maybe he didn’t want to alarm me, knowing I wouldn’t be able to do much about it,” he added.
Rameshbhai said he didn’t mention the caste angle to the Mumbai Police when the investigating officers took his statement because he was genuinely unaware, and it is only in the few days after his son’s death that he has been hearing about the alleged harassment.
‘Monumental failure on part of administration’
IIT Bombay asserted Tuesday that it had taken the utmost precautions to make the campus as inclusive as possible, and that the caste identities of students and members of the faculty are disclosed to no one. It also pointed to the existence of an SC/ST student cell where students facing any such discrimination can complain.
“There have been very few complaints to the cell, whether against faculty or other students, over the past many years and only one case was found to have substance and strict action (was) taken,” the institute’s statement said.
The APPSC at IIT Bombay, on the other hand, said it had repeatedly pointed out structural issues faced by students on campus. It added that any organisation that points to the need for a discussion about discrimination on campus faces charges of harming the prestige of the premier institute.
In its statement Wednesday, the student body said that surveys conducted by the SC/ST cell at IIT Bombay, as well as an open house on caste that took place last year, detail the kind of discrimination that students have to go through.
“Despite all the data pointing to lack of institutional support for SC/ST students, the institute did not care to act on them to create any suitable support mechanisms… Disregarding all these detailed testimonies and data which are available with the institute, the director (of IIT Bombay) still kept reiterating either blindly or shamelessly that there is no discrimination in the campus,” APPSC said.
“It is not just apathy, but a monumental failure on the part of such higher education institutions to have a clear understanding of their own functioning,” it added.
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(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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