Dalits get helping hand

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In a bid to help students from weaker sections of society with regard to higher education, career choices and discrimination, a telephone helpline and a Dalit and Adivasi Students’ Portal has been recently launched by the Insight Foundation, a non-profit trust comprising students and professionals. Although the website will address issues relating to Scheduled Castes/Tribes student community studying all over India, the maximum cases addressed by the foundation are from Delhi, informs Anoop Kumar Singh, national co-coordinator, Insight Foundation,
Anoop adds, “We are getting maximum response from students from as far as Nagaland, Hoshangabad, Kutch, studying or planning to take admissions in Delhi colleges. The telephone helpline will help link first-year college and university students with faculty members and senior students who can provide guidance. Counselling will also be given to students facing discrimination and prejudice in campus.”
He also cited several cases, the foundation addressed like that of Bal Mukund Bharti, a final-year medical student from AIIMS, who allegedly committed suicide because of alleged constant harassment, he received from teachers and fellow students. “To bring forward his plight, we have made a documentary The Death Of Merit, based on the testimony of his parents and are planning to screen it in Delhi this July,” says Anoop. The website is also planning to launch its mentorship programme, were students and aspirants will be linked to mentors enrolled with the group, mostly SC and ST, who are now themselves successful members of our society.
Students in the city are quite upbeat about the move. Amit Sonkar, ex-student, JNU, says, “Students from these communities, who come from small villages, have a hard time during admissions and studies, since they are often humiliated. They feel alone and many in their peer group do not accept them. If they get a platform where they can share their grievances, I’m sure, caste discrimination would be soon erased from society.”
Rakesh Kumar, a reserved category student from Punjab and a regular caller to this helpline says that counselling really boosted his confidence.
“As I belong to a small town in Punjab, I’ve always been subjected to humiliation in school and have faced harsh comments from my own batchmates. Initially, I was really scared about getting into DU. But the helpline guided me about career choices and also made me believe that even I have the potential to study in esteem institutes like IIT and JNU. Now I’ve applied for political science in DU and want to be professor in the university so that I can be of help to Dalit students later.”
But many want the government to come up with more such specific initiatives. Sana Zehra Jafri, a PhD student from Jamia Millia Islamia, sums up, “I feel more than students and professionals, taking up the issue, the Indian government should show serious responsibility and address the problems of Dalit students.”