Mistaking Arsonists for Firefighters

A detailed picture of events

Trigger warning: This document reflects on the theme of systemic discrimination and retaliatory process prevailing in the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in association with student _name redacted_, who was continually targeted and put through severe practices in an attempt to prevent his endeavors to hold the culprits accountable.

And one day you're going to look around and you're going to realize that everybody loves you… but nobody likes you. And that is the loneliest feeling in the world.

~a random cartoon

In July of 2021, I was given an official notice to leave campus after being tricked into filing an official grievance to the director. I was given an unofficial statement that the proceedings would take place immidiately, and I would be called for every meeting regarding my multi-fold complaints about how students are harassed, abused, and discriminated. And then I could complete my credits as I pleased— a feint in plain sight. It was similar to previous maneuvers, like when I was asked to register courses while the same proceedings ran in the background—a direct manipulation to discredit/contradict the charges filed related to the same courses, then using the same reference to protect the faculty (the abuser) of that respective area. This was fairly common knowledge in the underprivileged circle of students, the ones who were often pushed off the edge.

For someone who had been falsely framed as mentally unsound and forced to take a break, it was crystal. So, I refused to leave the campus until my grievances were resolved. That was something the director couldn’t bear on his daily evening breaks, as he had to then actually do something. So he ordered his subordinates to target the my family and convinced them using past, present, and (carefully planned) future references that this fellow was nuts. These intimidations, both passively threatening and reassuring, are targeted toward financial capability, ethnicity, and educational background. For a student with a background below the low-income threshold, supported by a meager $150 monthly scholarship, it was the viable soft point. So, after a few days of refusal, I had no choice but to pack my belongings in 19 units of garbage bags and vacate.

( A senior hostel staff (not faculty) offered a lift to the station as a non-deniable option. In the future, this happening will be recorded as a bogus backstory of how a student committed an untold crime and put on an unofficial ban.)

After I left with so much dirt on the director, dean of student affairs, dean of academics, dean of student welfare, dean of hostel management, hostel warden, and faculty, it was only a matter of days until I found the extent to which my family was indoctrinated. The guy who had just written thousands of words and scored way above average (79/100) in a recent entrepreneurial course last semester was labeled as a disrespectful, ingrate nut-job who was personally counseled by the faculty and experts free of cost, but could not be accepted in our campus until he was rudimentarily therapized. For a household with a generational history of poverty, whose entire future they gambled on their offspring, this was divine punishment. Of course, it could not be challenged as it was delivered by the highest of authorities, who were allegedly still open to saving the unfortunate child. God bless him them.

The original grievance filing was buried by the end of the same month, and a message denying all the claims of the initial complaint was delivered by email. There was no registration number, no signed document, etc. There was no investigation, nothing that would involve any participation from the victim. A closed-door get-together, probably accompanied by a lot of refreshments and the offenders, concluded: Nah, fuck off. Everything that was sworn in the previous meeting was devoured in those huddles. When I demanded a definite answer to all the claims that the director previously made, I was given a red-collar reply—we are short on manpower, just a staff of 2000, so there will be delays. But go ahead, please, send more specific disturbing incidents and unfair decisions taken on you, and establish properly this time, that you were victimized.

This is the general way to oppress a traditional complainant. In usual scenarios, that is sufficient to cap off a typical student where they would have to choose their paths of surrender. In case a student is from an affluent background, a privileged position like governmental or legal heritage, or anyone with a credit card, the story might have gone very differently for those ringers, even for a moderate-level complaint.

However, it was only the first report I submitted under extremely hostile conditions, and was made to leave the campus so that I could not submit the rest. Nothing reporting the high-level workings of faculties involved in systematic academic harassment and bullying practices that could never be addressed for an individual. The other grievance in the system, at that point, was against the warden. I had to file that online immediately I reached home. To leave no stones unturned, I had explained (in person) a few details to the top dogs at Affairs and Welfare. So I filed a one-pager highlighting all the lines their warding agent crossed while I was writing my first 35-plus-page long explainer. Now, I had to send specific instances as asked by the director. So, I wrote a short report the next day, highlighting the key actionable-wrongdoings with red about my penultimate semester (the director asked me to write for all semesters). This was the time when faculties were openly bending the provisions to their own will. I also submitted a red-highlighter version of the previous report to point out what they missed (or shunned). This message accompanied the new reports:

Hello sir,

I understand your mail completely and felt very disappointed in myself that you found nothing in the document after such a long and careful examination.

I am attaching the follow-up document here along with the complete document for continuation. I am mailing it because of these deliberate scenarios so let me know if you want the physical copy—I'll post it to you. I urge you to read everything I send on a printed form. Considering the short document(3 pages), I hope you pass your judgment sooner than last time.

For your convenience, I have marked The Injustices Red so as to navigate easily. Do let me know if these are disturbing enough to start your procedure.
I'll send you the follow-up of this in due course.
thanks
----
_name redacted_

The new report was short, direct, and brutally honest in portraying what happened and how it was made possible. At that point, it was unambiguous that a bunch of professors were about to lose their jobs, if not end up behind bars. So they called a meeting the next day to formulate a strategy to prevent any of this from getting out, put all guns blazing to eradicate credibility. This was where all their efforts and experience of the past few months would shine. The dean of affairs passed an official statement, with a registration number now, that remarked the student lacks substantial evidence for the mentioned charges, that they were concerned and caring, did absolutely nothing to disturb his privacy, and that they had to protect him from himself because of his history of self-harm.

Wow, a past case of mental illness had now become self-harm somehow. That’s what they think (would like to deal in thinking) when a typical student comes out to seek help. (These are official words now. That’s what everyone is going to hear for the next three years of my life, wherever and whenever I would ask for help.) I then responded-

Respected sir,
The respect for you lasted only till the last line. Now that the jokes are over, I want to ask how you came up with such conclusions. Have you made yourself aware of the incidents? I wonder who told you because I didn't. I only mentioned the charges, not explained their origin. Did you ask the warden, who is not even tagged here, because he is facing the charges? Or did you ask the deans, to whom I shared a glimpse of the incidents, and whose views were surprisingly reminiscences of three points you casually mentioned? After one month, you organize a meeting, with no evidence or no effort to find them and all I am getting is your Findings.

The evidence you were talking about, who do you think has them? Why do the charges appear so vague to you? The hint is in this mail itself.

When I had the first meeting with the director, I specifically asked several times about how transparent this investigation would be and he mentioned that I will be part of it. He didn't mention I will be a ball boy. Let me remind you: I created this whole investigation. I filed the complaint. I was the alleged victim. Isn't that clear from the whole scenario? I doubt you even know the scenario. Like which idiot told you hostel guards followed me. They were some other guys from the security office. They didn't even wear guard uniforms. Shocked? you would be if care. If you feel like somebody is going to harm himself, you start to stalk them? Without even notifying them? Wow. And If you or your secret security were so un-vaguely concerned about my safety, which I have no idea how; I ask you, where were you all this time? What made you so concerned about my safety just last month and not earlier times when I was actually self-harming, or was I? What exactly made all the hell broke loose when I finally made a logical choice and was apparently not depressed about it? How are you so comfortable with so much misinformation you possess?

Well, your last point is the funniest of all and which was sorted out you long before. For more information, contact the caretaker. From my side- I am twenty-five years old male adult with an above-average IQ. I am eligible for numerous rights, even in 2021. Hell, I am even eligible to join the Army or be a candidate for Lok Sabha. And I broke no rules, neither am I obliged to follow the fake ones. You check the details of the issue on which this mail is written, and you'll confirm it easily. Else you LET ME KNOW.

I am not at all grateful for the poor work you have done on this task you were given, therefore I ask you to stop wasting time as I do not have this much, mentioned previously to your potential committee members as well. And unlike you, with all due respect, I am not getting paid for it, so we should stop this dose of entertainment for the CCed immediately.

Safe travels.

This marked the start of a meticulous process of shaping an individual and everything and everyone he comes in contact with with the existing mental health narrative trap. For more info on MH as a new weapon for retaliation, check out the full study by Kate Kenny, Marianna Fotaki & Stacey Scriver 

Expecting the rejection of my third report, similar to the last two, I once again started working to complete my original document. All this time, I had been prevented from putting that on paper. Now that I was at home, I could catch my breath and work on it. That was wishful thinking. I underestimated the reach of opposition, who had now tapped into my devices and accessed my home address. After brainwashing a few members of my family, they sent their artificially manufactured proof next week, labeling him a suicidal maniac. To people who fall to their knees when meeting their son’s instructors–his gurus from the high places–this was akin to imprisonment notice.

I responded by email accordingly:

Dear Sir,

I am writing this mail to let you know that the letter you sent to my
father has reached today(weekend). I still have no idea behind the
reason for sending the same notice(printed) that you sent to me, which
was mostly "vague" and the reply to which is still probably unread in
your inbox. I had filed a complaint to the director as well, but he
did not send any letter copy to my father when he failed to take
action against the complaints. Now I am doubting whether that
complaint was taken seriously or not.

If the letter was supposed to mark the issue as closed, please reply
to my mail, at least do it yourself and without stalling. I understand
you must have a lot of arranging, notifying, appointing jobs to do and
but even kids can agree that this issue is more important. If you have
left the issue and some other authority is handling it, let me know in
advance.

One month, several days and counting...

P.S.- I might be the only one who can read in my entire Gali.

The letter I received was already opened and potentially scanned by multiple eyeballs. When asked about the person who opened it, I got a plain-faced lie. That’s something I would get for everything from onward. For now, I would be considered a mindless mutt of this household. The only self-harm I did at that point was the mistake of sending that email titled Help.

Such gaslighting proved catastrophic for my time in my own house. The concept was simple: rid this student of any support that would put the director’s neck at risk, even if that meant keeping tabs in his own home. Meanwhile, the seed of mentally-challenged took the form exactly as they deemed.

In a matter of months, my entire identity would be altered, for I had to fight to prove my own sanity and beliefs. For the rest of my days, I would now be grilled for things like long hair, and how I tied it—as skinny boys with queer personalities in India are always wearing their hair long. And what else is a queer person other than a mentally challenged with tattoos who has to make his own meals, right? Well, that was the norm in my surroundings, and I certainly matched the description. I was already an alto, if not a contralto. Now, I would have to be a devout follower of specific man-gods, as worshiping and tending to these entities rid all malice of the mind. Hundreds, nay millions, of failed people who had lost their way of life (and got involved in practices that would bring any shame to their name,) got saved by becoming devotees. In a matter of months, I would be stripped of a lifetime of education.

The concept of a guy getting harassed and discriminated against is like flying saucers to the underbelly of agrarian India. Here, a person is either sane or possessed, especially in the parts that are dominated by religious cults long ignored by other Asian cultures. These cults follow the rule of orthodox serving, and by becoming a manservant to their priest-dubbed leaders, one would be considered standard. In these regions, children, women, and men are ostracized in one way or another by every other family or their extended branch. There is a limit to the education anyone can get, as implicitly dictated by religious leaders who provide mass directives as word of god. All diseases and disability are ordained by that and only that will come with the treatment. There are no doctors or hospitals in such regions, only medicine traders who would rather be small-time practitioners than qualified vets.

As a result, anything related to “health” is an extravagant affair that should only be considered if it can be addressed by some local white collar, who should settle it cheaply. Everything else is up to faith.

Education is the only way out for a student hailing from such a pit. The director put me back there and reminded my family that their lifetime investment would be ash if they didn’t straightjacket the 25-year-old kid. While I waited for the supposed first meeting when the investigations would proceed, my meals were getting doped with substances, aka medicine, provided by some bare priests. When I used to sleep, my water was getting laced with some other version. Later, my space lost its locks entirely. When confronted with the facts, people would pass a smirk and lie with a straight face. Yes, that was my home now. This was not something I tolerated and protested on every occurrence that followed. The entire residential block would make comments about me in the words they couldn’t pronounce. They started playing loud preachings from their leaders outside through the day and night hours. Mindless neighbors would start rambling about the benefits of listening to this person on TV or the miracles of doing whatever that other saint-licker was preaching. The racket was people directed, by probably my own family, to help condition this guy to accept reality and come to their senses.

In a few months, I would have to settle to seek outside help. As months passed, his health started degrading at a much faster rate. With limited access to unadulterated food or water, more disabilities started to surface. The constant exposure to blasting noise damaged his auditory cortex. Sound was akin to fire now, but that was not the worst affected part. A couple of physical bumps were housing close to his upper spinal column—on his shoulder and back of his head—shit, not the head. An online doctor recommended screening. The possibility of not being able to write was a real-world danger now. I needed to find an expert now, even a journalist, submit all this data before it was too late. That’s what I would do. But first, I would seek help in a National Writing competition...

Share your story with me.