Solidarity

Living in India for the last six weeks has, as I’d expect happens to most Westerners visiting so-called “third-world” countries, opened my eyes to countless luxuries I enjoy and expect in the States. A number of these are commonplace: hot water, easily accessed stable, quick internet, nearly-24 hour libraries and gyms. Among the heavier-hitting luxuries (though still, luxuries) I’ve come to recognize is the relatively more respectful, open and receptive student-administration relationship I enjoy in Madison. Observing student politics at UoH has made it quite clear that this is not a universal luxury.

Last week, while I was in Hampi, a doctoral student here committed suicide. The wake of this tragedy has been tempered with general unrest as this is the second suicide by a doctoral student in that department in the last two months. Allegedly, student-unfriendly bureaucracy played a major role in both incidents, as the students found their faculty and administration extremely detrimental to carrying out their work, generating enormous stress for the students. In the first case, a faculty member was allegedly preventing the student from working on his fellowship project for stretches of months, ultimately costing the student his fellowship and his place in the university.

Many here argue it ultimately cost him his life; I would, admittedly with only a superficial understanding of the situation, question such a brash, singular assignment of responsibility for a man’s decision to end his own life, particularly when that assignment totally abdicates the man himself. It strikes me as a swift, unsophisticated pointing of the finger, but such is to be expected when tensions run high. I believe I understand where the students are coming from – undoubtedly this sort of massive stress could contribute to serious mental upset, lending itself to depression and the perception of a hostile world. But countless other elements of this man’s own outlook, experiences, environment and brain functioning could be equally responsible. It’s a messy algebra, trying to put together one’s reasons for ending one’s life, and surely irresolvable. But I refuse to believe any singular experience or phenomenon can be held accountable as the sole force which pushed these men over the edge.

I digress; my intention here is not to parse apart the hows and whys of double-tragedy, nor is it to critique the human urge for swift, indiscriminate justice. My point is to tell you of the response: the following Monday, the students staged a bund (from ‘bund kurna’ in Hindi, literally meaning ‘to close’), protesting the faculty and administration’s role in these suicides by refusing to attend classes and protesting around campus. While SIP (Study in India Program) classes still met, many students refused to attend their classes, and would collectively enter classes requesting the professors to cease class and allow their students to leave in solidarity. To the worried, I would stress the deliberate nonviolence in these students’ method and note that I’ve heard nothing of anyone being hurt or threatened in this process.

My initial reaction was to question the usefulness of this process. Would it not be more effective to demand the administration’s implementation of systems (i.e. free student counseling) to prevent future tragedy? Or to issue a collective statement bearing the student body’s signatures? The simple walking out of class seemed rather ineffective in resolving the existing injustices.

Today I arrived to my Cognitive Psych class to discover a large number of students assembled in front of the building. A friend from class explained that the students were again staging a bund, this time in response to a controversy surrounding the mess (cafeteria) in the Integrated Students Hostel. It seems that while a number of students living there had paid for the semester’s worth of food, the worse off students on government subsidized meal plans were still waiting for their scholarships to come through. Though the University apparently has funds aplenty to cover their meal costs and could simply wait for the government to reimburse them, they decided to instead close the mess hall for forty days. Beyond inconveniencing those who could afford to eat elsewhere on campus, the less wealthy students have apparently been either going with very, very little food or simply returning home, unable to afford meals at the Student Canteen. A week ago, a similar bund resulted in the administration offering meal coupons which could be used at other mess halls on campus, but failed to follow through, and so the students are again in protest.

Not only does it amaze me, coming from where I do, that this sort of thing would happen in the first place, but I am stunned that this issue could remain unresolved for so long. It certainly implies an unresponsive, indifferent administration, unconcerned with the obvious injustice of this solution (as is, in my opinion, the case with any sort of ‘punish the group for the individual’s offence’ method). And so I found myself reevaluating my appraisal of the bund as reactionary and ineffective, as it seems to take that level of collective statement through action to be heard on this campus and indeed, it is one of the only tools at the students’ disposal. It’s a shame to see an administration so disconnected from its students and, at best, indifferent to their desires that students are forced to refuse their role in the educative system in order to be acknowledged and listened to. 

From my conversations with Mr. Das, the benevolent man who manages the new SIP hostel’s affairs, this seems to run rampant through governmental organization in India. Without reason or rule turning higher-ups’ attention to those they manage (the most benign verb I could conjure, in my libertarian revulsion…), further-downs stand little chance of being noticed, across contexts and spheres of influence. And in that ugly apathy, one senses the cogs of civility and progress slowing to a halt. Even in India, real, meaningful social responsibility sometimes seems to elude apprehension. But so long as people continue to reject the status quo in simple, human solidarity, there is the possibility of resolution, ahead but en route.