Beyond Statistics, The Link Between Institutional Caste Discrimination and Student Suicides in India

The recent Supreme Court guidelines issued by Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi to the University Grants Commission on suicides and caste discrimination in higher educational institutions inform an underreported connection between rising suicides among Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students and the entrenched social discrimination on campuses. A Rajya Sabha response in 2023 revealed that between 2019 and 2021, 98 students from Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities across central universities, IITs, NITs, IIMs and IISERs died by suicide. 

While the response lists “professional concerns, family problems, or mental disorders” as contributing factors, it remains silent on caste discrimination as a driving factor behind such suicides. In the current phase of Hindutva nationalism, we argue, this lack of data further strengthens the discourse of an upper-caste campus eco-system reflected in the exclusionary politics of universities. 

Silence on caste in suicide data

In 2023, a Lok Sabha response admitted that there is no official data on linkages between caste-based discrimination and suicide rates among SC/ST students. First-hand narratives, especially recently reported incidents, reveal the stark realities of exclusion as causes for rising instances. These instances have ranged from Rohith Vemula’s death by suicide in 2016 to the most recent suicide case of Ritham Mondal in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. 

Moreover, the rising number of reported incidents in IIT Kharagpur has been called out by faculty and staff as an outcome of ‘caste tensions’ on the campus. A Lok Sabha response from 2023 indicates that there could be many statistical reasons, such as bankruptcy, marriage-related issues, extramarital affairs, family problems and unemployment, behind the student suicides; however, the linkage between social discrimination and reasons for suicides among the Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities finds no mention. 

The suicides of Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi scholars have indicated an afflicted relationship between caste discrimination and Indian universities. A research note by the Senthilkumar Solidarity Committee, an informal committee that discussed institutional reasons for Senthil’s suicide case, argues that the dominant academic culture dismisses the purpose of the reservation policy and rather reaffirms the caste hierarchies.

N. Sukumar, professor of Political Science at Delhi University, interviewed 600 students, 188 females and 412 males from the Scheduled Caste in metropolitan and non-metropolitan cities to argue that universities often become ghettoised spaces to perpetuate social exclusion and spaces such as classrooms, laboratories, etc, often become a site of differential treatment. Suma Chitnis’s empirical study conducted in the 1970s in Maharashtra titled ‘Education for Equality: Case of Scheduled Castes in Higher Education’ discussed the preference of Scheduled Caste students towards Arts courses; however, many of them dropped out due to discrimination in grading. 

Amid all this research, the institutional factors and reasons for suicide are never transparently linked with the social discrimination on campuses.

Lacunae in institutional redressal mechanisms

A look at Ritham Mondal’s suicide case at IIT Kharagpur, and a statement by the Director, Suman Chakraborty, has called for introducing “a holistic intervention programme combining cutting-edge technology in the form of an AI-powered health monitoring tool”.

The redressal mechanisms to address caste discrimination are indicated in the New Education Policy (2020), providing for counselling systems for handling emotional stress in educational institutions. Further, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued guidelines for Promotion of Physical Fitness, Sports, Students’ Health, Welfare, Psychological and Emotional Well-being at Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). 

Nevertheless, despite the existing mechanisms, the institutional apparatus has failed to address the structural discrimination against lower-caste students in academia. The higher educational institutions have been negligent not only in implementing reservation policies but also in addressing subtle, everyday forms of caste bias. 

These everyday forms of caste bias are connected with the project of Hindutva nationalism, which has especially seen a rise after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. This politics has excluded and homogenised the social and political networks in the university spaces. The lack of data and caste-sensitive redressal mechanisms in the current era of Hindutva nationalism is only a symptom of the larger problem that is entrenched in discrimination and exclusion.  

Caste, campus and Hindutva

The universities have turned into spaces of ideological contestation and symbols of exclusionary politics under the Hindutva regime. Students who have actively participated in opposing the Hindutva government’s policies and politics have faced severe consequences, like suspension. 

One of the larger implications of this is India’s constant decline in the Academic Freedom Index, which is currently ranked as 156th globally. Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University, has pointed out that academic freedom has declined drastically under the Hindutva regime because of interference from government, rising pressure from political power and ongoing curbs on research and teaching based on ideology.

The reflection of exclusionary politics is also visible in the practices of vegetarianism in university spaces. Campuses across the country, like IIT Bombay, have witnessed separate seating arrangements between vegetarians and non-vegetarians, reinforcing notions of purity and pollution. This element of disgust further allows the Hindutva regime to intensify communal, caste-based tensions and to appease its core supporters. 

In Delhi University, the administration of Hansraj College discontinued serving non-vegetarian food, and in IIT Madras, separate entrances – and even wash basins – were allotted for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students. Further, IIT Bombay’s vegetarian-only tables were marked as ‘This place is designated for vegetarian food ONLY’, thus institutionalising the practice of untouchability through food. 

While many would argue in favour of these dietary practices as a way of living, Dolly Kikon, Professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of California, analyses in her study, ‘Dirty food: Racism and casteism in India’ that the food of lower castes and tribal people is connotated as dirty and filthy showing embedded casteist ideological politics at play. 

The banning of certain food choices in university spaces thus reasserts the casteist and racist hierarchies that universities, as critical spaces, were created to fight against. 

Way forward: A conversation on politics of recognition

The Supreme Court’s recent guidelines offer an opportunity to move beyond rhetoric and establish a university space that allows for freedom of thought and expression with equity. 

Further, the dominant-caste faculty and students must acknowledge their privilege and exclusionary practices they might represent in their day-to-day lives. It is worth noting that conversations of recognition of caste politics cannot take place without the dominant caste acknowledging its privilege in the larger society.

The deaths of Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi students are manifestations of entrenched systemic discrimination. Therefore, at the levels of policies, there is a dire need to move beyond counselling cells or AI-based monitoring tools and issue a call for structural institutional reform. 

In this regard, universities must collect disaggregated data on caste-based discrimination and suicides, establish independent redressal bodies with representation from marginalised communities and train faculty and administrators in caste-sensitive practices.

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