Gandhi vs RDB

This is in context to the recent happenings in IIT Kgp. Details can be found in the following sites : http://www.scholarsavenue.org/ or http://scholarsavenue.blogspot.com/.

For Latest updates ::: http://www.scholarsavenue.org/ (Scholars Avenue is IIT Kgp's news magazine)

Here is a brief summary (using excerpts from the aforementioned sites)

"This Sunday, the 22^nd of March, shall go down as a black day in the history of IIT, Kharagpur. It was with great sadness and considerable anger that the residents of the campus received news of the demise of one of its own; third year Electrical Engineering student, Rohit Kumar. A resident of the LLR Hall of Residence, Rohit had been visiting the hospital since Friday, the 20^th of March, complaining of headaches. On Sunday, the headaches became increasingly painful and it was on his way back from the doctor that he fainted and fell from the rickshaw, resulting in major injuries. Following this, he was taken to BC Roy hospital by two students of LLR. The doctor on duty (who was present at the time when Rohit was taken to the hospital), Dr. N.K. Som, recommended that he be taken to Apollo Hospital, Kolkata and shown to a neurosurgeon. He stated that BC Roy did not have facilities to handle such cases and that it was best to take him to Kolkata as soon as possible. However, problems (such as filling of petrol) and the extensive paperwork involved in arranging an ambulance caused a delay of 2 hours during the course of which nothing much could be done. He was finally sent on his way to Kolkata with 2 students for company and an untrained attendant. En route it was realized that though the oxygen mask had been placed over his mouth, the tank had still not been turned on. Soon after this, Rohit started coughing up blood. The students who accompanied him had the attendant call up Dr. Som and the students followed his instructions; pumping out blood without any help from the attendant. At the time, it was decided to take Rohit to the Spandan Hospital in Midnapore since his condition was deteriorating rapidly. In spite of asking the BC Roy officials to call ahead and inform Spandan of the impending arrival, there was no one there to receive them. By the time a doctor was found, Rohit had passed away and the hospital declared him dead on arrival."

What followed next can only be termed as any institute's nightmare. Over 2000 students surrounded the Director's residence and started shouting slogans against him. Soon the situation got violent, stones were pelted and Directors car was destroyed. The mob now wanted nothing less than the Director's resignation. Police were called in to control the situation.

That evening a general student meet was called which soon turned into a slogan shouting session (please note all this is based on the the accounts of Scholars Avenue (news magazine of IIT Kgp) and the accounts of my friends there.

The question arises whether the students were justified or not. IIT Kgp is first of all, well, an IIT! It is one of the premier engineering and science institutes in the world not just India. Students dream of getting admission to the IITs.

Being so respected it is expected to have good healthcare facilites. Unfortunately this is not the case, as is apparant from the incident. This is a glaring flaw from the administrator's side. For the sake of sanity, them being the most highly educated persons should know that a college with strength greater than 5000 students requires more than just a first aid clinic! An insitute cannot function until its students are heathy. Many students will be affected and the general sentiment will certainly not be favourable towards the admin in this regard. IIT Kgp is now 59 years old. I am not going to believe that the students never tried to ask the admin to do anything. But what is even more unbelievable and shocking is that the admin has not done anything about this for 59 years! Either on students' requests or on their own!

Then a student dies due to their negligence. What are the students expected to do?

I greatly respect Gandhiji and am a follower. But such incidents force me to rethink. Should the students have just kept a two minute silence followed by a candlelight march? After suffering from such poor healthcare facilities (another student lies in the ICU fighting for his life as you read this, check the aforementioned site), does one expect them to send flowers and cards saying "Get well soon"?

With all due respect to Gandhiji, I think if it had been my friend in trouble, I would have personally made sure that the college comes to a standstill, by hook or by crook. My anger would have known no bounds.

Right here I would like to pause and think. No I would not like to damage property or break someone's head. What purpose would it serve? I would just be degrading myself to the level of a hooligan. Yes, I get some satisfaction on having broken a few things, but that's not going to bring back the dead. And that's certainly not going to get the admin to do anything. Obviously they would do something to cool the mob off, but thats it.

Again neither will sending flowers get us our needs. Here is where most people confuse Gandhiji's methods. He never wanted to cajole the, well, "enemy" into giving into the demands. He wanted them to see that they had no option! How did he do that? Simple, non-cooperation movement. He brought down entire systems as everybody stopped working and went on a strike, displaying their discontentment. Whatever the "enemy" tried, this had no solution but to listen to the agitating party. All Bhagat Singhs and Subhash C. Boses put aside, it was, in the end, Gandhiji and his method which got India its freedom.

Hence my view is that violence is certainly not going to get us anywhere (I can say confidently that the IIT Kgp admin will not wrk on the medical issues but on getting the agitating students as soon as the atmosphere cools down). Instead if the students should follow the right channels, if those dont work, they should go on
strike and stay put till the admin takes definite steps.