Sunday

A lot has happened recently. For details, read:

http://www.scholarsavenue.org/2009/03/22/student-dies-en-route-from-bc-roy-hospital-to-kolkata/

In short, a kid died this Sunday due to medical negligence and administrative apathy. Students, already having lost faith in the Dean, Students' Affairs(DoSA), swarmed in front of the Director's residence hoping for some positive action from him. All they got was the standard beurocratic response of "We'll look into the matter, and punish the doctor responsible." Angry students got frustrated. Here, one of the media-men shooting there, did his trick. He threw a stone at the Director's bunglow. That started a mob reaction, as students broke window panes and the Director's car. After much shouting of slogans, the director resigned from his post late evening. 

Since then, we're having committees and meetings and discussions and what not. While the good news is that the students and the administration seems to have woken up, I don't know how long they'll stay awake. The reaction at the Diro's house, while violent and going against everything we've been taught since childhood, was long overdue. Seriously, how can you ignore the voice of the people you are supposed to be helping, and hope to get away unscathed? 

That said, I think that there are others in the administration, present and past, who deserved this more than the Director. I mean, that guy was new, while there are other people who have held their posts longer, and have ignored this issue longer, and it is their responsibility more that Rohit died. I think we should really try to make sure that the real culprits are made answerable.

While I should be congratulating my fellow-students for managing to get the authorities to listen to them, it came at a great cost. So, I am back to my favourite question. What if? What if we'd had the guts to protest earlier? Don't try to tell me that boycotting Illu was a 'protest'. We all, including the powers-that-be, know what really motivated that boycott. What if our protest had really been an honest protest? Would this have happened?

To be fair, blaming the janta is wrong here. There have been cases of the Institute making an example of the students who tried to speak up- Schols Ave when they published the story on BC Roy, a KGP drams troupe who presented a play on a politically sensitive issue(I forget the exact theme) and a student representative who tried to expose an embezzlement many years ago. The first two got threatened with DC and the last one, poor guy, last I heard, he was still trying to somehow finish his stay here and move on with life. 

Even with all the mistakes of the past, I feel there's still hope. Janta is charged, and is making sure that the authorities will work their a**es off. They're making sure that this is not forgotten. They're assuming an active role in the post-Sunday events. All in all, I think we've learnt our lesson.