A Letter from Professor Kanchan Chowdhury, President, IIT Kharagpur Teachers’ Association.

I am a B. Tech. (Mechanical), Patel Hall, 1973-78 and Ph. D. , B C Roy Hall, 1979 -83. Currently a Professor at Cryogenic Engineering and also, President, IIT Kharagpur Teachers’ Association.

Opinion given herein is my personal and necessarily does not reflect that of teachers body IITTA.

I came back at the campus 4 days after Rohit died due to our neglect and heard about the students’ reaction expressing their strong emotion at the Director’s residence. Since, I am also a Professor at IIT and President of the Teachers’ Association, I chose to give our reaction to the current situation in the form of a memorandum submitted to the Chairman, BOG on the 27th March, 2009. However, the alumnus in me has forced me to write this mail to Scholars Avenue.

1. Nobody supports violence. However, to those who are castigating the students for ransacking the Director’s residence, let me tell you that such an incident is not unprecedented at IIT Kharagpur. 33 years ago, in 1976, during the tenure of Prof. C S Jha, the exterior of Director’s residence was ransacked (though on a lower scale) by agitating students aggrieved on mess condition. The difference between 1976 and today is that during our time media was not so active. That is why the incident did not find that attention and has been forgotten. In spite of many strikes and agitations, we could do nothing to change the condition of the mess and hostel.

2. Medical neglect and death due to negligence is not new at IIT campus. Students are not the only victims. In front of my own eyes, wife of a professor died gasping for breadth, because the ambulance (!) by which she was brought to B C Roy Hospital from her home after an asthmatic attack did not have oxygen cylinder fitted in. In spite of murmurs and talks, nothing happened. When students complain that they are left into the jaws of death, are they really wrong?

3. After becoming a faculty here, I thought I will do something for the students for which I suffered as a student myself. In 1994, I became the Warden of a Hall. I found how the food is stolen and how students’ money is doled out to appease local political party. I tried to stop these practices, but vested interest grouped against me and I was asked to resign. I refused, as I was sure that I am on the right track. Finally, after 90 days of assuming charge, I was sacked by Chairman, Hall Management Committee without citing any reason. When the students complain that the system is corrupt, are they really far from truth?

4. Though it is true that it is the system that is at the root of all trouble, I completely agree with the students that for any incident, such as Rohit’s death, which may be a lapse of the system, “heads must roll”. Because, in case we assume that the system is doing everything, those particular heads are not important enough to linger on to the chair any way. And in case the heads were doing it and not the system, they must take the responsibility for their action or inaction. Anyway, these are the heads that allowed such a system to perpetuate. Otherwise, in democracy, how shall I make myself being heard? To those who are crying hoarse telling that everything is lost about IIT’s reputation, let me ask you what we have achieved by remaining calm and disciplined for so many years. We have to preserve the brand name called “IIT”. But, Rohit could be my son, your son. Is it not too heavy a price to pay for so-called IIT brand name, when the Ministry of HRD has already decided to dilute the brand by establishing about two dozens of IITs within a short span of time and huddled the students like cattle in rooms by increasing the intake before the infrastructure was in place?

5. We failed in our time as we could not sustain our tempo and were disorganized. Please go through the letter that the students have submitted to Chairman, BOG on the 27th March, 2009 and you will be amazed at the maturity of the tone and language. Students, please be assured that, you are much better than what we were 30 years ago. But,
please focus on the final goal and I wish you all the best.

6. Teachers at IIT are deeply agitated for the way they are treated and feel alienated at all levels. Because of the lack of clear path towards professional advancement and absence of campus amenities such as school, college and hospital, IIT Kharagpur is lagging far behind in attracting the brightest and the best as the faculty. I am duty- bound, as the President of the Teachers Association to highlight these issues in the coming days and they will be done.

Source: Scholars Avenue

A Letter from Prof. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay, Dept. of CSE, IIT Kharagpur.

It’s one of the saddest moments of my life to hear about Rohit’s sad demise in such an unfortunate manner! My deepest condolence to Rohit’s family, parents and his friends! As we do not have any other forum to speak about this matter and share my views with the students, I would like to do so here, not only as a teacher but also as an alumnus of this Institute. I spent almost nine years as a student in the LLR Hall, incidentally the hall, where Rohit lived. I would like to share my grief with his hall mates.

I was fortunate that I did not require any treatment from the hospital. In our days also, we did not have much faith either on the quality of care. I could not remember any specific instance of an interaction with our doctors, except in one visit with an intention of grabbing a medical certificate. The attending doctor also understood my requirement with a good heart. However, we were fortunate enough not to have similar incident in our time, which may be due to less number of students on those days.

However, after I joined as a faculty, time and again, the poor infrastructure of the hospital came into its limelight due to chain of deaths of faculty, staff, their relatives in this Institute. Though it is rare (and may be sometimes not so apparent), a student’s death for the same reason is not unknown to us. After each death, we were alarmed and discussed about improving the condition of our hospital. The last one I could remember, which agitated many of us and also raised many of the questions similar in nature, is Prof. Santi Kal’s death last year. That time also, various measures were assured from the administration, however were quickly forgotten, as we got ourselves busy into our daily affairs.

I also lost one of my dearest ones about twelve years ago due to lack of medical facility not only in BC Roy Hospital in particular, but also in Kharagpur and near by places. My father in law was visiting me on that day and his pace-maker failed suddenly. He required to be placed under an artificial heart-lungs machine, which was only available at hospitals of Calcutta. With some initial treatment at the Railway Hospital and after arranging an ambulance from the B C Roy Hospital, when we started, he was almost gasping and succumbed on his way. That was one of my horrific journeys from Kharagpur to Kolkata by road and I could feel for Rohit’s friends, who were with him during his last hours.

About a few years ago, when there was a talk of setting up of a super-specialty hospital, we were all excited. In fact, President of India laid the foundation stone with much fan-fare. I do not know what prevented our administration to go ahead with the scheme. Many a time, then head of the SMST expressed his frustration in his inability to move the matter. Is it due to lack of money or lack of will or lack of belief that a technological Institute is capable of running a hospital? Whatever may be the case, I always felt that as Kharagpur is a remote place from the City, an Institute of National Importance should have additional responsibility for extending the advanced health-care, not only to its own community, but also to the people near-by.

No words are sufficient for this deplorable situation. I feel ashamed when many of our students reported how indifferent was the initial reaction from their mentors. I only hope that the Institute policy makers will take a lesson from this incident and plan for building up necessary infrastructure and program for facilitating the tertiary health-care to its own community.

Source: Scholars Avenue

NOW or NEVER

Its three days since the Black Sunday in KGP. While the campus seems to have more or less returned to normal; there are the political brains out there trying their best to undo whatever loss they have incurred. Referring to the two articles in Telegraph this morning.

First one says that there was just an unavoidable delay in attending to Rohit which cost him his life and that there has been no negligence by the hospital or the authorities here. How ridiculous!! For the facts we would just like to remind them of the two Open House sessions this academic year.

The first session:
Query: Sir the BCRTH cannot provide for even the basic medical facilities. The staff is utterly non-cooperative. Something should be done to improve it.
DD: You know some time back I met a guy from MIT. He went around the campus and told me all things apart, sir, the state of your hospital and medical facilities is as worse as in MIT.(How proud to say that!!!) So you know some things are as they are. We will try something.

Second session:
Again the same query.
The Director’s answer: Nothing can be done about BCRTH. Cope with it.

A month later a student dies and still the administration thinks it was not due to their negligence?

In another article telegraph mentions about the deplorable conditions of food, accommodation and healthcare facilities here. There’s a particular response about mess food by DD we would like to point out: "It is difficult to provide food to suit all tastes. People come here from every region. Their tastes vary."

Cases after cases have been reported and brought to notice of the administration be it the food or the health problems. Why then do they turn a deaf ear? Tomorrow someone else among us; might be the person writing this post fall into an emergency. Shouldn’t I be afraid of my life? People say we are fighting for Rohit. No, its for us. Whatever we do or make them do, Rohit’s not coming back. But what we will ensure is that we don’t fall the next in line.

Are our lives worth nothing? We all have our families behind us. Designated the cream of our country- the best brains- all eyes remain fixed on us. And what treatments are we meted at the hands of some self-centered diplomats? Rohit, Anshu-both had families who would have rejoiced at their selection; who would have dreams chasing his future that how he would be a support to his family; their pride. What wrong had they done?? Or their families had done? Is an IITian’s life worth nothing?? One of us dies and everyone washes their hands off the matter. We can’t point out who exactly was responsible; but those who are supposed to solve the very problems which led to the death aren’t they an accomplice in the unfortunate incident; or should we call it a murder?


We'll protest until we get satisfied with the progress of the work.