Sociologist Emile Durkheim had famously hypothesised that ‘suicides are a result of not just psychological or emotional factors but social factors as well’. The death of Payal Tadvi, a 26-year-old resident doctor at Mumbai’s BYL Nair Hospital, has exposed yet again the insidious nature of discrimination and casteism against Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST) students in educational institutions. Tadvi belonged to the Bhil Muslim community, recognised as an ST group. The death of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit student pursuing his PhD at the University of Hyderabad, whose suicide was described as “institutional murder” in 2016 is also a case in point.

Body:

Despite constitutional provisions and safeguards, dalit representation in higher educational institutes and in the work force remains largely minimal.

Discrimination at Educational institutions and Jobs:

• Discrimination happens in different ways. At the institute level, it could be a teacher failing a student because of personal bias against their rural background.
• Or it could be teachers and students making casteist comments against students.
• Dalit children have been made to sit separately while eating in government schools.
• Sometimes the government itself puts students at disadvantage by not implementing its policies. When a student avails the post-metric scholarship, for example, they sometimes don’t get it for the next one or two years.
• The person either drops out or goes to a private loan shark, ending up in a vicious cycle of debt and, eventually, poverty.
• People belonging to lower castes have little chances to be called for an interview
• Another pertinent issue is the experience of caste discrimination in educational institutions and the level of politicisation of such issues on the college/university campuses.
• Sometimes disagreements between student groups on the university campuses take on ugly forms.
• According to a 2010 report by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the Prevention of Atrocities against Scheduled Castes, a crime is committed against a Dalit every 18 minutes.

Thorat Committee findings on discrimination:

• The Thorat Committee report eventually served as a milestone in efforts to identify caste-based discrimination in higher educational institutes.
• It revealed that about 69 per cent of the SC/ST students reported that they did not receive adequate support from teachers and about half of them cited inaccessibility and indifference as reasons for less contact with teachers.
• About one-third gave caste background as reason for avoidance by the teachers, and 72 per cent of SC/ST students mentioned some kind of discrimination during teaching sessions.
• About 76 per cent of students mentioned that their papers were not examined properly and 88 per cent mentioned that they got fewer marks than they expected.
• About 84 per cent of these students mentioned that evaluation in practical and viva was unfair and 85 per cent of them mentioned that the SC students didn’t receive enough time with the examiners, as compared to higher caste students.
• Besides, a large chunk of SC/ST students experienced social isolation and discrimination during their stay in the hostels at AIIMS.
• The report also delineated the discrimination felt by SC/ST faculty members employed at AIIMS, Delhi.

Impacts of such discriminations:

• Lower castes don’t enjoy a good quality life and it pulls down the overall HDI
• Potential of lower castes remain untapped and human capital is lost
• Psychological impact whereby they adopt their conditions as if they are entitled to it and shun in raising their voice against discrimination
• In extreme cases, discrimination may lead to incidents like suicide.

Reasons behind persistence of such discrimination:

• Traditional mindset with deep rooted caste system in pockets of India
• Low level of awareness among lower caste about the government polices and legislation intended for their favour
• Poor implementation of existing laws like Prevention of Atrocities Act
• The primary reason for educational institutions emerging as pulpits of protest lies in the fractured social structure in universities, where the elite of the Dalits are competing with general students.

Measures needed for Inclusive Educational System:

• Banish Untouchability in Educational institutions: The government must proactively ensure a discrimination free education atmosphere.
• Constitutional safeguards and protective legal clauses can play a great enabling role.
• Reservations combined with economic opportunities and social empowerment of Dalits could stem atrocities against them
• Country needs a better basis of reservation which includes the poor and the backward groups and excludes the rich and the dominating sections among all castes.
• The present reservation system requires serious amendments.
• Before extending reservation to more groups, the entire policy needs to be properly examined, and its benefits over a span of nearly 60 years have to be gauged.
• A change of attitude is needed among the ruling classes to stem the tide.
• The private sector will have to accept the social responsibility setting aside its sole profit motive.

Conclusion:

Quality education is the bedrock of sustainable development, the foundation for improving people’s lives. Sure, we have made improvements in this area, but we need to take stronger measures if we want this development to reach the most marginalised in time for achieving our Sustainable Development Goals.