Anitha suicide: Compensating her kin a crude gesture, Tamil Nadu govt needs to throw students a lifeline

“Anitha is my daughter. And I will raise my voice for her,’’ says Kamal Haasan, the veteran actor.

Haasan, has, in recent months, given voice to the angst of the people. He has shown the courage to take on the powers-that-be.

But even with Haasan’s backing, a jallikattu-like protest isn’t in the offing. The Marina uprising for jallikattu occurred in January because the establishment looked the other way. This time, wiser from experience, it won’t. Because it knows the angry youth will come charging at Fort St George.

Anitha’s suicide is deeply disturbing. The needless death of this young, talented girl leaves one numb. It is obvious that the 17-year-old was pushed into taking this extreme step. A girl who aspired to save lives ended up choosing death.

Many metro-based urban commentators do not understand the challenges of educating yourself in India’s rural ecosystem. Often, difficult circumstances conspire to push youngsters out of school.

In Tamil Nadu, the situation was thus: If a student did exceedingly well in Class 12 exams, he or she could get a seat in a medical college. That was a huge incentive for the academically bright Anitha, the youngest of five siblings, who scored 98 percent.

The state had always managed to stave off the shadow of NEET, which loomed large, by petitioning the Centre. It was but natural for the likes of Anitha to expect that the AIADMK government would do so again.

But 2017 proved to be different. An ineffectual government, besotted with its factional power play, did not have the political bandwidth to lobby effectively with New Delhi. With their own houses on fire thanks to income tax raids, firefighting for students was not on the top of their minds.

A lot has been said and written about how MBBS aspirants should attend coaching classes in order to be able to crack NEET. In an ideal world, in the Adyars and Gopalapurams of Chennai, that is the way it would be. But this isn’t an ideal world.

Last year, coaching institutes jacked up their fees from the Rs 12,800 charged for a one-year course to Rs 22,500 for a 45-day NEET crash course. Tutors charge around Rs 1,500 per hour. And such institutes exist only in the main cities, not in places like Ariyalur, which is 40 kilometres from Thanjavur.

The mistake India made was not providing students’ equitable access to coaching facilities. Instead, it threw students such as Anitha into the NEET pool, expecting them to sink or swim.

Anitha’s father Shanmugham is a daily wage labourer in Trichy, 90 kilometres from Ariyalur. The family leads a hand-to-mouth existence. Anitha told a TV channel, “NEET is tougher for poor people as we don’t have the money to pay for coaching classes.”

Without help, Anitha was all at sea. Unable to cope with the unfamiliar syllabus, she scored just 86 marks out of 720 in NEET.

Which is why the Tamil Nadu government’s gesture to give Anitha’s family Rs 7 lakh, however helpful, is crude. The irony of being unable to care for a child when she is alive, but trying to remove the stain of your guilt by putting a price tag on her body, is cringe worthy indeed.

The least the Tamil Nadu government can do now is to set up NEET coaching institutes in every district town, with faculty drawn from the best medical colleges.

The Supreme Court commented during the hearing that there can be “no compromise on intellect’’. The message that has gone out is that the Samacchir Kalvi (Tamil Nadu’s Uniform Education System) syllabus introduced in 2010-11 for Classes 1 to 10 is below par when compared with CBSE, which is what NEET tilts towards.

The Plus 1 and 2 syllabus was prepared under National Council Of Educational Research And Training (NCERT) guidance by the Directorate of Teacher Education Research and Training. However, it must be kept in mind that this syllabus and the NEET syllabus are as different as chalk and cheese.

What is urgently needed is an independent audit of the quality of the course material from Classes 1 to 12. Suitable changes should be made if it is below par, but at the same time care should be taken to ensure that it is suited for students.

In fact, Union health minister JP Nadda last year admitted that the syllabus for NEET is different. Which is why it was decided not to hold the exam in 2016-17 and that states would be given time to improve their syllabus. Educationists argue that Class 11 and 12 are a combined course and therefore NEET should not have been held this year as well.

What is unfortunate is the manner in which Anitha has been insulted in her death. Many have questioned who funded her travel to the Supreme Court, where she was a respondent in the case. It was reminiscent of the manner in which many folks in Delhi and Chennai wondered how poor farmers travelled from the Cauvery Delta to Jantar Mantar to protest for 40 days in April and May.

It is the usual ploy employed by those in power: To humiliate those asking questions of the status quo and portray them as being “for sale.”

For those wondering, it was Tamil Nadu-based NGO State Platform for Common School System, which arranged Anitha and four other students’ travel.

According to a senior Tamil Nadu bureaucrat, when they found pro-NEET students from other states presenting their case, anti-NEET activists in Tamil Nadu felt that they should also field their best students. Anitha was chosen going by her stellar performance in the Class 12 exams, where she scored 1176/1200, with perfect scores in physics and maths (200/200), 199 in chemistry and 194 in biology.

Once the protests over NEET dies down, Anitha’s death, like her marks, will become a mere statistic.

While what she did was undoubtedly wrong, one hopes that those in high office are sufficiently ashamed of themselves and are moved to act.

To ensure there are no more Anithas.