Another suicide@IITK

Two things have the highest frequency in IIT Kanpur during this decade; one is the construction of newer, better and costlier hostels and the other one is suicides. Hardly is there any batch post Y2 (the batch that got admitted in 2002) which has not noticed a suicide. Some batches have seen multiple suicides by their batchmates.
Unarguably it is troubling. Whats more troubling is the fact that immediately after the suicide, two prime activities start; finger pointing by various parties (students Vs. profs) about whose fault it is ultimately and attempt to somehow use these suicides as a means of getting better grades.
If you consider the first one, it seems quite obvious that whenever some such incident happens, people will try to search out for a reason and may be it starts with that. However, the fate of all such discussions are sealed and ultimately they turn out destructive rather than constructive discussions. Both parties start blaming each other. Students say its the academic load and the ill-behaved professors (in some cases) which led to this suicide which is partially true. The professors say its because the student bunked classes because he/she was probably using internet over the night and that he/she had cut himself/herself off from rest of the students. This resulted in lack of good grades (or F grades ) and destruction of social support networks to cool the student down. Again, partially correct. Nobody tries to understand the complete picture. This blame game goes on for few days and after that everyone forgets the student.

Almost all the suicides have one thing in common; the person who commits suicide is cut-off from his/her batch and wing and becomes more of a loner. Where were these so called protagonists who are trying so hard to get him/her justice now (as they say). Some of these are the guys who actually cornered this person and now they want to blame it purely on acads to lower their own sense of guilty.

The worst part, however, is the efforts by a section of students to try and use such suicides to their own advantage and pressurize the professors to not give them low grades (including F grades) by writing mails (or letting professor know through friends) to professors telling them how stressed out they are about their results and how important a good grade in that course is for them...On 99 counts out of 100, professors give in to such tactics because they cannot know for sure whether the person is serious or he is bluffing (they are always bluffing) and they certainly cannot take the chance. Prof. A.K. Mallik (one of the best professors of all time that IITK had) stopped taking undergraduate courses because he was blackmailed like this by one of my batchmates soon after a suicide happened in IITK. Even worse, such cases of taking advantage of suicides have been reported from almost all IITs.

Sometimes I think I should be proud of being an IITian or should I be ashamed. The doubt prevails.....