Amity Law School suicide: Outraged students take to social media

Institutional failures are proving to be lethal for many an unsuspecting and talented student.

While the untimely death of Hyderabad University PhD scholar Rohith Vemula rocked the nation's conscience in the beginning of this year, the country is shocked again at the death of a young student in the heart of the national capital. Sushant Rohilla, a third year student of Amity Law School, IP University, Delhi commited suicide on August 10 in his Sarojini Nagar house.

In his suicide note, Sushant said he was "ashamed of not being a good son, a good brother, and a good friend".

So why did Sushant take this extreme step?

According to a Facebook post by his uncle, Dinesh Rohilla, Sushant took his own life because he was being detained for a year by the college due to low attendance in a semester. Rohilla also asserts that Sushant had shown clear signs of the propensity (Dinesh Rohilla attached Sushant's email to the college) to taking the extreme step and that the concerned authorities should have been flexible in their rules because a lot more depended on them.

This is what Sushant's sister, Mehak Rohilla, posted:

Fellow students of the college are aghast at the apathy shown by the college administration and are expressing their outrage on social media. Sushant's classmates, batchmates and other students have stated that Sushant was a top debater, who attended, won and organised multiple moot courts for Amity Law School and it was because he suffered a horrible foot injury that he couldn't obtain complete attendance for the semester.

The reason why he missed college was because he had suffered a foot injury, which made him unable to go to college.

— Teerth Waraich (@WesterosKaKing) August 15, 2016

He did everything for our college. He participated in competitions and won them, he organized events out of his own pocket.

— Teerth Waraich (@WesterosKaKing) August 15, 2016

He was also the head of the Debating society. He taught me everything there is to know about debating. Mentored me, tutored me.

— Teerth Waraich (@WesterosKaKing) August 15, 2016

Our college has a 75% attendance norm but it is completely arbitrary. They forgave attendance for Miss India contestant but killed my friend

— Teerth Waraich (@WesterosKaKing) August 15, 2016

Not satisfied with social media response alone, the grievously upset students of Amity University held a protest outside the college on Tuesday, August 16, asking for justice for Sushant.

Even the alumni joined in the chorus of agitation against the injustice meted out to Sushant Rohilla. This is what ex-students of Amity Law College said about the latter's administrative policies:

Am alumni of Amity Laws, know how attendance rules used to be waived for some kids of powerful,don't know if still true.#JusticeForSushant

— Ishkaran S. Bhandari (@Ish_Bhandari) August 16, 2016

Here's an account that another student posted about arbitrary detention policies of the college:

On Facebook, the page - ALSD Alumni Against Atrocities - has been mobilising support, including organising the protest held on Tuesday, August 16. Students have been tweeting non-stop tagging the the Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar, with many Twitter celebs sharing posts to bring attention to the issue.

There's something inherently broken in ALL facets of the system w/ teachers, w/ students, our treatment of mental health & our expectations

— Aditi Mittal (@awryaditi) August 16, 2016

And attendance means nothing if a mouth-breather is going to read a textbook out verbatim. (Very common in most engineering. colleges, btw.)

— Ashish Shakya (@stupidusmaximus) August 16, 2016

Amity law school, student committed suicide after disciplinary action. https://t.co/DRIhJ8poWl

— Karuna Nundy (@karunanundy) August 16, 2016

Despite trending it, no one really is sure what #JusticeForSushant can be tangibly translated to. The angry students, who are justifiably feeling let down by a rigid administration, are asking for removal of a specific admin personnel, who, according to multiple posts, wields too much power over matters like these.

But why are authorities in charge of sensitive institutions such as universities and colleges not more alert to and cognisant of the imminent danger of prioritising archaic rules over the students themselves? Also, why aren't rules clearer so that students don't participate in extra-curricular activities if the latter do not add up to their actual attendance on register? What kind of doubly prohibitory system doesn't encourage the student to express himself/herself to the fullest and explore the cultural and educational opportunities abounding at a university college by wielding the stick of "attendance"? Shouldn't our colleges and schools have proper mechanisms in place so that attendance is corrected in case of medical emergencies or for external participation by the student at competitive platforms? We won't even talk about his broken foot because every college in Delhi sanctions genuine medical leave.

Also read: Why student suicides in IITs are not ceasing

It is a travesty that a precious life has been lost, once again due to technical rigidity of institutions that prize themselves as India's frontier of academic excellence. The problem is that due to the way policies are structured, it doesn't allow for proper contextualisation of each case, which here resulted in the death of a budding legal mind, who, by all accounts, was an ace student.

The students want heads to roll and the authorities want to control negative media. But for Sushant's inconsolable sister, she lost her little brother because archaic college policies didn't budge to accommodate a brilliant student in need of help.

That's the real tragedy of India.