The stranglehold of caste

Casteist profiling is manifest in all institutes of higher learning, such as, medical colleges, IITs, IIMs and engineering colleges. The stereotyping happens sometimes overtly and many times covertly with students from SC/ST backgrounds as soon as they enter renowned institutes of higher learning.

Digambar Bagul is a PhD student from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) specialising in untouchable education and finance. He also did a dissertation in 2014 on SC/ST students called 'Learning to Die'. Hailing from a tribal area of Dindori himself, Bagul has attempted to expose the issue threadbare in the dissertation. Hailing TISS for having a vibrant SC/ST cell in the campus, he points to a lack of such University Grants Commission (UGC)-mandated cells in other campuses as one of the reasons for cases of atrocities against people belonging the lower castes.

Division of hostels based on caste, admission forms coloured according to caste, and stopping SC/ST scholarships, Bagul feels, are some of the many reasons that give rise to peer-to-peer discrimination on campuses.

Dr Rewat Kaninde from JJ Hospital was a consistent topper in his school in the rural area of Pusad in Yavatmal. He went to study in an Ahmedpur college in Latur in Marathwada. He scored 87 per cent in the Common Entrance Test (CET) and 95 per cent in the PCB group in his college. Despite such scores, he was subjected to casteist taunts. He is currently in charge of the Mahatma Phule Janarogya Yojana (Mahatma Phule Public health scheme) in the state-run JJ Hospital in Mumbai where he completed his MBBS.

Also Read: Fixing social mindset, dialogue ways to correct discrimination: Dr Bhalchandra Mungekar

Dr Kaninde points out to the fierce competition and prestige associated with medical courses as the reason for instances of discrimination.

"There is cut-throat competition as the medical profession is identified as the best one in traditional societies. The cultural difference of open and reserved category medical students, coupled with economic status and differences in the attire, varying skills in fluency of English, become first steps of discrimination in medical colleges," opines Dr Kaninde.

Kaninde thinks that opinions on issues of reservation are formed based on half-truths that the 'WhatsApp university' propagates, instead of an informed study of the issues. The Supreme Court, he states, recently had observed that meritocracy is not just a factor of marks but also includes representation of marginalised communities.

Also Read: HoD said this happens in colleges, say Dr Payal Tadvi's kin

Dr Prachi Sambhaji Sharda is a trained dentist pursuing a postgraduate degree in public health at TISS. Dr Prachi belongs to the SC community but admits that as a second generation learner, she had the comforts of a middle-class family. She doesn't use her surname and due to her urban antecedents, her rural background or caste is often not revealed. However, the system perpetuates discrimination.

She said that when SC/ST students enter premier institutes, there are separate lines to pay fees for SC/ST students and for open category students. Hence, your caste identity never stays hidden. In villages, caste-based violence is very crude, whereas, in urban areas, it is either covert or sophisticated.

Also Read: Informal to formal, institutes try various means to tackle casteism

Prachi admits that the worse affected are those reserved category students who start doubting themselves after getting an admission in institutes through reservation. "They openly oppose reservation to stay in the good books of the 'anti-reservation' group. However, deep within, creeps a sense of self-doubt which gets converted into depression. What further feeds the depression is the 'god-complex' that reigns in the minds of certain open category seniors, for whom oppressing a gullible reserved category student is easier than harassing someone who got the admission through management quota," states Dr Prachi.

Dr Prachi narrates an incident when during her days as a junior doctor during her dental course, a patient asked her caste and refused to be treated by her. In another instance, a friend's mother doubted whether her medical qualifications are foolproof as she had got the admission through a quota. Dr Prachi believes that Dr Payal Tadvi's case is not that of ragging but an instance of crude casteism, which is slowly becoming a culture in medical colleges.

Trust Issues

• Dr Prachi Sambhaji Sharda narrates an incident when during her days as a junior doctor during her dental course, a patient asked her caste and refused to be treated by her
• In another instance, a friend’s mother doubted if her medical qualifications are foolproof as she had got the admission through a quota
• Dr Prachi believes that Dr Payal Tadvi’s case is not of ragging but of crude casteism

Past cases of discrimination based on caste in India

March 13, 2017

27-year-old Dalit student Muthukrishnan Jeevanantham aka Rajini Krish takes his own life in a friend’s room at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in New Delhi. His father, Jeevanantham, files a police complaint alleging that his son was facing harassment by the JNU administration for being a Dalit

January 17, 2016

Rohith Vemula (26), a PhD student at the University of Hyderabad committed suicide allegedly over discriminatory treatment meted out to him by administrators

November 2013

Madari Venkatesh, a Dalit PhD student at the Advanced Centre of Research in High Energy Materials committed suicide. Venkatesh had not been allotted a supervisor or a doctoral committee to supervise his research even two-and-a-half years after he joined the university

March 2012

Anil Kumar Meena, an MBBS student at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, committed suicide because he was allegedly harassed for his backward background.

March 2010

MBBS student, Bal Mukund Bharti, a Dalit from UP and a student at AIIMS, New Delhi, committed suicide following casteist remarks against him

February 2008

P Senthil Kumar, a Dalit PhD student at the University of Hyderabad consumed poison in his room. He was one of the four SC/ST students in the 2006 PhD batch who were unable to find faculty supervisors for their research

Compiled by DNA-Research N Archives

Fierce Battle

• Seats in government-run medical colleges: 2,500
• Seats in private medical colleges:3,000-3,500
• Applicants from Maharashtra: 2,19,883
• Only 40% seats in UG are available for PG, which makes the competition fiercer
• Seats are even far and few when it comes to specialised fields such as neurology, cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, among others. These fields do not have reservations.