About Campus Deaths Warn of Growing Malady:
The suicide of a Nepali at Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology in the state of Odisha last week prompted a protest from Nepali students and widespread notoriety. And among the various comments that flew across the net, one on Facebook stood out: 
“Nepal has a century-old tradition with Lord Jagannath; hence any student from Nepal should be treated with utmost care in case we have faith in Lord Jagannath.”
This statement raises an important question: Should hospitality be a business of faith? If we are to recognize the religious kinship as a cultural bond, does that bond have any place in the realm of international education, particularly within those branches that strenuously distance themselves from the study of theology and religious studies, like engineering?
Ironically, for an institute that presents itself as a bastion of industrial education, the invocation of a religious test for international hospitality generates deeper contradictions in the Indian subcontinent.
Beyond Sentiments of Faith: The Culture of Discrimination
However, the underlying sentiment expressed by such statements obscures the main issue: the systematic hierarchies, exploitations, and discriminatory hostility which these suicide cases and the institution’s violent repression of protests all expose.
Time and again, religious sentiments have brought to light the age-old cultural conflicts drenching the Indian subcontinent in discrimination. The alleged harassment of the deceased Nepali student by a fellow student from Uttar Pradesh exposes the gendered and sexualized forms of exploitation which exist within such cultures of discrimination.
There was, at one time, a Punjab police chief called KPS Gill, who said, to the poet Dom Moraes:
“The Indian psyche is knee-deep in suppressed violence.”
It is a statement, and insight, that remains ominously valid today. Recent events in eastern India are a reminder discrimination is not an isolated incident; rather it is something that permeates the length and breadth of the subcontinent.
India, the largest and most powerful player in South Asia, has distinctly failed to undertake the mantle of responsible leadership as imparted by its dimensions and economic status.
Institutional Condescendence and Marginalization
Another horrendous aspect of the KIIT incident is the condescension shown by some faculty and administrative staff to those protesting students from Nepal.
Nepali students should thank the founder of this great institute for free, subsidized food and education.
“Look at the budget spent on them-numerically more millions than Nepal’s entire national budget!”
Such statements are neither patronizing nor exposing the deeply rooted bias and exploitation that mainstream India has invariably hurled towards its marginalized neighbors. This undercurrurrency of discrimination and bullying echoes the experience of students from Northeast India for whom some semblance of parity and equality has long been fought over-back in Delhi hostels and universities.
Perhaps Lord Jagannath speaks to them, amused that the Neps along the countryside share such faith as a doormat to slip into India’s condescending foreign policy-always ready to thump benevolently for Hindus across the neighborhood.
Residential Higher Education Crisis
The KIIT crisis is an indication of how India is struggling with the larger crisis affecting residential higher education.
- Gone are the days when engineering colleges were characterized by a largely male hostel culture, united by lifestyles and homogenous career aspirations.
- This era is now on India’s higher education horizon with the rise of liberal arts and sciences, thereby welcoming a varied aspirational space.
- This diversification exposes a new front of vulnerabilities, in particular student mental health.
- For far too long, the cut-throat nature of the culture in engineering colleges, heavy on hazing and discrimination, has driven countless students to suicide-when, in fact, most students affected belong to marginalized and lower-caste backgrounds.
When Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology lost the life of a student to suicide, Ashoka University mourned the loss of two other students–one in an accident, the other in a suicide incident. These episodes are not isolated cases, for we have had a similar near-recurrence in the last few years.
What Now?
Residential education in India is still alive and promising but stands an almost infant counterpart to deep-rooted traditions like Nalanda and Takshashila, which once had a reputation for attracting students far beyond the countries of Asia.
Likewise, the US has its very own well-established model of residential higher education. But for India, leaving one’s home for an institution for four years of study equals a kind of leap of faith, endowed with immense trust in that institution’s ability to afford safety and support.
To honor that trust, institutions should:
Eradicate communal discrimination and ensure that students from all backgrounds feel equally valued.
Address gendered violence through strict regulation of harassment complaints.
Prioritize mental health with more support for students, including counseling and peer mentoring.
Adopt a zero-tolerance stance toward bullying and institutional exploitation.
If India’s universities can build safe, inclusive, and empowering residential environments, they will nurture the next generation of leaders. Instead, should these institutions fail in protecting that trust, they will snuff out young lives even before they can shine.
