Rohit Khanna 
What happens when a young life is cut short in a terrible manner? We rarely find out how the families deal with the loss in the months and years that follow, but we still need to acknowledge our collective role in their deaths.
We choose the inefficient governments that run our lives. We pick the self-serving politicians. The bureaucrats and police officials who do shoddy work – they come from among us. Dodgy medical college principals, owners of coaching centres who willingly endanger students’ lives, sexual predators dressed up as Wrestling Federation chiefs – they are people like us.
Knowing little about those we let down should not let us off the hook.
Kolkata: Letting down working women
We know little about Kolkata’s 31-year-old junior doctor, who was raped and murdered at the city’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, while on night duty. She was an only child. Academically bright. Her father was a tailor who gradually built a small garment business. She chose respiratory medicine as her field because she saw how it saved lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, said reports.
And then she was dead. Raped and murdered because we could not guarantee neither her safety nor the safety of millions of women in our country who work at night. Reports say that after the crime, her medical college authorities let her down even further.
Also read: RG Kar Brutality: When a Dying State Turns Criminal, It Feeds on Its Own Body
Muzaffarpur: No end to caste and gender violence
We know even less about the teenaged Dalit girl from a village in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district – just that her mutilated body was found in the village pond – gang raped and murdered after being kidnapped by one Sanjay Rai and his accomplices. Rai, from a higher caste and an influential local family, had been harassing the girl and her family, demanding that she marry him. The girl and her parents, who are daily wage labourers, had refused. Out of fear, the girl had even dropped out of school.
Rai and five others forcibly entered their home and abducted the girl, her family were unable to resist – that’s how brazen the crime was. The family says they had complained earlier to the village panchayat, which had done nothing. Even now, while the accomplices have been arrested, the main accused, Sanjay Rai, is absconding.
Why didn’t the village panchayat help the Dalit family? Why was the girl forced to drop out of school? Why can’t we guarantee the safety of a Dalit girl from harassment? Why has the police not located and arrested Sanjay Rai? Is he being shielded? Why is the rule of law so weak in India that it fails to deter men like Sanjay Rai from committing rape and murder?
Delhi: Death by civic apathy
Similarly, we know little about Tanya Soni, Shreya Yadav and Nevin Dalwin – the three students who drowned in the library basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle institute in Delhi.
Twenty-one-year old Tanya was fond of poetry, and like many youngsters from Bihar, wanted to crack the UPSC exam. Her father is a Deputy GM at a public sector coal corporation in Telangana. Tanya had just completed her BA in Political Science in Delhi, her family fully supportive of her UPSC dreams.
Twenty-five-year-old Shreya Yadav was from Ambedkar Nagar in Western UP. Her father runs a dairy shop there. Her two younger brothers are still in school.
Nevin Dalwin, 29, came from Ernakulam in Kerala and was doing his PhD. He wasn’t a full time student at the coaching centre, but was a regular user of the library. His father is a retired Deputy Superintendent of Police, his mother is a professor.
A fellow student who was lucky to survive, recalled that even as the water poured in, Tanya told everyone to stay calm and suggested forming a human chain. His last memory was seeing Tanya and Shreya standing on a table as the water gushed in. Their survival instinct was strong, but it was not enough.
After three needless deaths, it emerged that the coaching centre only had permission to use the basement as a storage room. Instead they turned it into a library, saving thousands of rupees of monthly rent, at the cost of students’ safety.
The frequent full-page ads placed by coaching centres like Rau’s IAS Study Circle in top newspapers, shows how cash-rich they are. Yet their students, who pay thousands of rupees as fees, are forced into cramped classrooms in dingy buildings, that violate multiple safety norms. After the arrest of the Rau’s Study Circle CEO Abhishek Gupta, the money appeared – the coaching institute says it will pay Rs 50 lakh to each of the families of the three students, as compensation. Too late.
The MCD, whose inspectors look away as coaching centres flout safety rules, have now ‘sealed’ over a dozen coaching centres in the area, for running classes illegally in their basements. Again, too little, too late. The Delhi high court has described this inaction as ‘criminal negligence’, while transferring the case to the CBI.
Also read: Deathtrap In Delhi: Students Rage After Rau’s IAS Flooding Tragedy, Demand Action
Meanwhile…
But now, let’s contrast the above stories with the story of India’s 22-year-old shooting champ Manu Bhaker. At the Paris 2024 Olympics she became the first Indian athlete to win two medals at the same Games. The toast of the nation today, Bhaker has been a world class shooter, bringing home medals since 2018, when she was just 16.
In Paris, India came away with six medals, just one short of our best ever tally of seven medals at Tokyo in 2021. Our hockey team has won back-to-back Olympic bronze medals. Neeraj Chopra is now the first Indian to win individual gold and silver medals at successive Olympics. In fact, 24 of India’s 41 Olympic medals have come in the last 16 years. At the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games, India winning 106 medals across 21 disciplines reflected the breadth and depth of India’s sporting potential.
What has changed? Are we finally supporting the nation’s athletes in the right manner?
We have become better at spotting and mentoring young talent. As a result, achievers are now emerging early and from all parts of the country.
Some athletes are getting top quality coaching, the best equipment and gear, support from nutrition experts and sports psychologists, all funded and paid for.
Which is not to say that all is well in Indian sports. Many of our sports federations are still fiefdoms run by politicians. Their political clout makes them unaccountable. Ask Vinesh Phogat, who spent 2023 fighting for the ouster of her wrestling federation chief, Brij Bhushan Singh, accused of sexual assault by several female wrestlers.
But the ‘bahubali neta’ from Central UP still controls Indian wrestling through a ‘proxy’ federation chief, Sanjay Singh. Even as India celebrated Vinesh, the one sour note came from Sanjay Singh, who blamed the wrestlers’ protests for India’s failure to win more than one wrestling medal in Paris.
Empty rhetoric
Over the last 10 years, the PM has often talked about India’s demographic dividend, referring to India’s young population and unlocking their potential. But we fail to get beyond the rhetoric. The NEET exam fiasco shows that we cannot guarantee our youth a fool-proof mass exam system, which so many put their faith in. Poorly imagined ideas like the Agniveer ‘short-service’ scheme have disappointed lakhs of youth looking for a career in the defence forces.
When we read about Indian youngsters losing their lives after being duped into joining the Russian army, when we read about thousands of desperate youth paying lakhs of rupees to human traffickers to enter countries like the US and UK – it becomes clear that we are offering little hope of a better life to our youth, here in India.
Unable to secure the lives of our working women against sexual violence, unable to ensure the safety of India’s Dalit girls and women from caste and gender violence, allowing precious young lives to be lost due to criminal civic apathy – today we are letting down our young generation badly.