Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) from the University of Hyderabad demanded a fast track inquiry in the case of All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (AIIMS) doctor suicide bid.
A dental surgeon at AIIMS, Delhi attempted suicide due to gender and caste-based harassment by senior faculty members. The woman doctor, who tried to kill herself on 17 April, was in a critical condition in the hospital’s ICU.
The Resident Doctors Association (RDA) of the AIIMS wrote to Health Minister Harsh Vardhan against inaction by the administration on complaints of caste and gender-based harassment from a Senior Resident of CDER, AIIMS. They appealed to the administration and the ministries concerned to “expedite the process and address this injustice at the earliest.”
ASA, which was home to Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula also demanded that the Rohith Act be implemented without further delay in Indian campuses. Ambedkarite organization believes that the Rohith Act would enable Dalit-Adivasi students to fight against institutional discrimination.
Read an unedited full text of ASA’s statement
When a year has yet not completed to the institutional murder of Dr. Payal, a senior resident doctor at AIIMS Delhi tried to end her life on Friday, 17 April alleged to caste-based harassment. There were repeated complaints filed by her complaining sexual and caste-based harassment by a senior faculty member, however, they were left unattended.
These unattended grievances forced her to commit suicide. This poses a severe question over the reluctance of these medical institutes to address caste-based harassment informed by the students which had been significance in all such institutional murders.
AIIMS Delhi had been a prime place to raise in anti-reservation protests which took place around 2006. This nurtured a huge increase in caste-based discrimination in AIIMS campuses for which the government had to form a committee led by Sukhdeo Thorat. The committee concluded with confirming such differential treatments in AIIMS campuses by suggesting certain recommendations.
However, just after two years of the committee the director of AIIMS, Dr. P Venugopal and other senior professors were just let free by the administration even after found guilty for promoting casteist propaganda.
This explains the rooted practice of caste atrocities that are indeed a reality in such institutions and the audacious nature of the institution to uphold them.
Balmukund Bharati and Anil Kumar Meena had been murdered by this same institution who too alleged caste-based discrimination.
These institutions who produce the so-called best doctors of the country are made battleground for ‘merit’. Their casteist tendencies aren’t different from their demands against reservation policy where these prominent professions are supposed to be held only by the Savarnas of this country.
However, the reality isn’t far from the ‘Kota factories’ and coaching institutions where lakhs of rupees are paid by these Savarnas to be trained to be ‘meritorious’ to enter into these premium institutions to foster caste discrimination.
We condemn the idea of the existence of such institutions whose glittery existence is preserved just to uphold Savarna privileges by barging Dalit-Adivasis to survive their presence.
We demand that the “ROHIT ACT” needs to be enacted immediately without any further delay. Like the “Prevention of Atrocities” act, the “ROHIT ACT” can enable Dalit-Adivasi students to fight against the institutionalized discrimination that are prevalent in the campus spaces throughout India. Curbing discriminatory practices in the academic spaces will ensure the entry of Dalit-Adivasi students into these brahmanical spaces.
Ambedkar Students Association also demands that a fast track inquiry needs to be conducted in this case. Along with the culprit, the administration should also be made accountable for their brahmanical attitude which was instrumental in the suicide of Dalit-Bahujan students.
 from the University of Hyderabad demanded a fast track inquiry in the case of All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (AIIMS) doctor suicide bid.){kind=link}