When They Dare You To Go Viral
but to sell yourself, you're too vulnerable...
This essay follows my previous post Strictly Not for Entertainment: 1 on this publication. Please consider reading that for context or My first post is ethically pirated...
Trigger warnings: Mention of mental health.
Up till 2018, people with psychological disorders were treated as delinquents in major parts of India. This was all supposed to change when the Mental Health Act was introduced a year prior due to a high level of activism and growing international pressure. When enforced, a key change was made to the title to maintain the status quo with existing norms. The name was changed with care—Mental Healthcare Act. This was an obvious answer to those familiar with the semblance of fair treatment in the field. A massive L directed in the face of academics eager to seek refuge from the discrimination label alone can incur. Those literally swallowed by flames of apathy were laughing in tears from above.
It was already a far cry from what was originally proposed to meet the UN conventions. But for the sake of communicable positiveness, it was portrayed as a massive leap from a century-old Indian Lunacy Act. Yes, this was a real thing. And the change in the keyword was suggestive of having a similar purchasing effect, at least for a decade. The main goal was to tap into the massive revenue stream hundreds of distressed people were sitting on, who would now be forced to choose despair healthcare. It was the same time Indian telecommunications grew multi-fold when the world’s cheapest internet services were introduced country-wide. For imaginary diseases seeped in fourth-dimensional words like Cognition, (then considered a medical term in India,) a remedy sponsored by some quality face-time was the next best thing.
To this day experts are conferring perceptions of the drawbacks and shortcomings of this proxy set of laws, while its practitioners make the victims aware that they can not do anything to take action. Studies to highlight the Indian context are regular, some even more focused on selling healthcare but with the same escaping conclusion: liberty may be compromised.
The concerns mentioned in the studies above are rampant in the higher education sector, with hardly any chance of discovery due to their inherent nature. Everyone knows how it goes; no one can do anything about it, provides a comprehensive case study of a fraction of what goes behind the scenes. It is hard to read in one go and even harder to pen down, especially alone. For those appalled by anything related to the state of mental health, it is indigestible. Sadly, the chances of having this much information out get low when provided as a last resort.
In the absence of any agency available to take action, abuse in mental health becomes a commercial issue. The resolutions to commercial issues are bound to only feedback—the raw data used to measure the slope of a trend. A trend is meant to be observed. That’s why even if one is subjected to inhumane treatment, slap an appealing MH tag and that’s it. Cool. Noted! Go out, and spread the word now!
Large institutes exploit this and bend the healthcare part of the act according to their own purpose. It starts with provisional measures, switching to asynchronous communications, and limiting modes of action in successive turns. They provoke the helpless to raise their voice, just to see if it can cross the threshold, and then they’ll probably consider doing something about it…
Probably is the keyword here.
What is it like to drop out from an IIT? (2019)
I dropped out of IIT Delhi last year. My main reasons were related to mental illness but apart from that, one of the most certain reasons was the people there. Yes people, both in the academic section and daily life. I have not gone to IIT just to study frankly, but to explore the various options of life but there I do find out that “Life is a bitch”, and so do the people there. For many years I struggled to get friends but due to the very reason that people got into the IIT through a very fierce competition, citizens of IIT Delhi are bloodhounds. They can literally cut for their own advantage and I was the victim many times. The amount of selfishness in the people there is timeless. It doesn't matter there if you are smart in your actions and life, but you have to be competitive and a so-called bookworm there. If you have a low grades in your academics there, people will consider you as shit, and treat you like a different personality altogether. They can't just digest the fact that one is not here to score peaks in the exam but to experience different aspects of life. As far as the teaching staff is concerned, it's the same story, study like a mule or go to hell in their eyes. They don't give a shit about what you want to become or what your goals are, instead, they want you to gulp all the shit they teach you in class and follow all their shitty rules and regulations. I had no complaints about the rules there but there were many instances in which I was charged with wrong accusations and nobody was there to listen to me. You know why? Yeah, you got it right, because I had very low grades.
Not only in the academic section, the students are way worse. I got some friends there who are permanent but over the course of 4 years I met many who were just there for their own good and they just desperately wanted to prove that life is like that, you kill or get killed. I had made one friend very precious to me in all my four years but at last, the dark clouds of evil had their mark. I got betrayed big time and eventually fell into depression and anxiety. I never thought I would be prey to such feelings until the time came. The path that is being taught in the IIT to rise up consists of betrayal, fraud, bullying, and vicious eating. There is a proper way of living there and if you are not fit for that then you will be punished.
Disclaimer:
SOURCE OF THIS ANSWER IS PURELY GENERAL KNOWLEDGE-> ONE SHOULD NOT CONSIDER THIS AS A PERSONAL OPINION OR SUGGESTION.
The following is an answer on the microblogging site, Quora. It was full of (now corrected) errors; written when I was made to return. Till now, it has been viewed by more than 91k people with 1.1k upvotes,28 comments, and shared 25 times.
Some of the (short) comments include:
I’ve hear pretty bad things about the atmosphere at IIT Delhi compared to other IITs. From other answers too, so far I’ve read 4 answers about IIT Delhi having a non friendly attitude, and I guess these things are true.
just wondering how people of reserved category cope up there as I am sure they will be far below their GC’s standard ?
It is the same everywhere. See Paper Chase by John Houseman. I left IIT 50 years ago because I found no research, and went to the U.S. Their students are good but faculty are second rate.
Same thing is Happening With me right now. Btw, I'm from a tier 3 engg college. So, u could guess things here are way worse than a tier 1 college
Proud of you mate, not everyone has the ability to survive this shit.
A few were…critical
How much more will you cry for some discrimination which neither did you nor ur father or grandfather witness?
Some just wanted to know more and reached out personally. I learned about this months later. I told them what they wanted to know, and suggested to fight only if they could, a false hope. The best they could do was write, anonymously. One guy actually did get to publish his experience in a small outlet in the US, though.
Hi _name redacted_, I fully agree with you. I had the same experiences in IIT-Delhi. I have written an article here: Student Counseling Services: Do They Really Help the 'Mentally Ill'? - Mad In America
I think It might resonate with you too.
It did. It was yet another attempt to send the word out to anyone interested in reading. But it didn’t cross the threshold.
As for the post above, it was noticed by a good chunk of students from technical studies and spaces it was shared. That was its extent. Unfortunately, writing on public social media has real consequences in a setting secluded from the outside. Due to the nature of that time and the high risk of retaliation, there was no mention of anyone specific. It was an attempt to deter the authorities from targeting students, a failed attempt. It may have actually backfired the moment I entered the campus and was denied accommodation with no given reason. Most of my batchmates were long gone, even the ones I alluded to in my post. Now alone, I would be given special treatment, far different from what I expected.
Similar to 2019, the inability to state challenging realities is still treated as impulsive online posting. For those not involved in the circle, vague ranting like the one mentioned above adds another point to the generic tally. Now, even if they have read it for the nth time and believe it’s true, it doesn’t matter. Writing to seek help is first (always) considered as writing to seek attention, let alone writing to take action.