I had stopped writing on ‘God’ and ‘Education system’
because these topics are least bothered in a country like India where when an
actor says something on intolerance becomes instantly the topic of discussion
of news channel while the news of death of our army men ends appearing in a
small column in a local newspaper. But this time, it is important for us to
think where we are taking our country.
A few days back, I met one of my friends who had left the
city to seek coaching in one of the most reputed institute in Kota. I asked him
how he felt there and what is so special about Kota, that every year so many
kids leave their homes to study there. “It feels like a mini India” he told me,
“You can see kids from all the states. The first few days are magical but...”
he stopped. I asked him what was troubling him but he refused to answer and
changed the topic instead. It was recently, I realized what was troubling him
while watching a news channel.
It showed a report of a student, particularly a dropper
(Dropper is a student who wasn’t able to crack the entrance exam in first
attempt(s) and is preparing again) committed suicide. Not only this, in October
this year, three students of class 12th tried to commit suicide.
Kota, referred as the ‘Education Capital’ has instead turned
into the ‘Suicide Capital of India’. Every other day a student commits suicide.
Suicide news in Kota have become as common as the news of our prime minister
going to a foreign visit (I won’t make any more jokes on that because first, I don’t
want Anupam Kher to march to my home and second, I like ink more in a pen).
Nobody frankly gives a damn.
So why do these students commit suicide? Why do they think
that death is a better option for them? Well before coming to the answer of
this question, let me bring some facts before you:
1 All the junk food industry (Chips or instant
noodles) have their maximum sale in Kota. More and more industries are being
opened every other day in Kota to meet the growing demands.
2 Going to Kota has become a trend now a days.
Parents send their children forcefully to Kota in hope of a better future for
their kids.
And
There has been a tremendous increase in the
cases of drug addictions in Kota. Drugs and Alcohol have become the new pain
killer for stress for kids studying there.
So coming to the question, why do they do
so? The answer is as simple as hell. It is fear.
Imagine a class of 60,000 students. Jerks,
intelligent, dumb all together. In a test, most of them fail but some of them
pass. There are some toppers too. How will you feel when your parents are told
that you have a rank of maybe 40,000 out of those 60,000. It is sure to hurt
and disappoint. Sometimes this disappointment is what takes a violent turn into
suicide.
It is not that those who fail in those exams
are dumb or don’t know anything. It is just that they are not ready for the
competition. Most of them are sent forcefully by their parents and hence are
unable to take the pressure leading them engaging into activities like drug
abuse, etc.
After reading all this, there must have been a very bad and disastrous image of Kota being formed in your mind but it is the truth. So how can we overcome this problem? How can we stop young minds of our country from committing suicides? There are a variety of solutions to this. Some of them are below:
1.
In a country like India, we need to discuss
these things. Yes we have enough time to go shopping. Yes we have enough time
to catch the latest episode of our favourite daily. Then why can’t we discuss
issues like student suicides? It is
funny to see that no news channel covered the rate of growing suicide attempts
in India but instead showed Rahul Gandhi’s latest interview (Well this must be the
last thing they would be showing on national TV)
2.
The government needs to take better steps in
order to insure that the students don’t feel like they are isolated. Each year
about 13 Lakh students give the JEE Mains but only 10,000 get selected. Well all
of them, as per criteria meet the requirement of minimum of 70% marks in 12th
board which means that they are not dumb. They actually have a mind. All we
need is to create more resources for them.
And
3.
Motivation is what they need the most. Today we
have platforms like Facebook and Twitter where we can share our views. we can
use it to motivate them. More student oriented movies should be made (Hey,
wait. I guess the censors will end up cutting all the suicide scenes so that is
not possible as of now). After all, a failed living student is far better than
a dead achiever .
