Odisha student’s death by suicide shows how India is still failing women
Predictable, knee-jerk reactions and promises of harsh punishment followed the death by suicide of a 20-year-old woman from Odisha on July 14 after she was sexually harassed by a college faculty member.
The incident underscored how India’s reactive and punishment-focused response to violence against women is fundamentally inadequate.
The 20-year-old BEd student at Fakir Mohan Autonomous College in Balasore had set herself ablaze outside the principal’s office on July 12.
Two days later, she succumbed to 95% burn injuries at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhubaneswar
The student’s testimonials and letters being circulated by the media show that she was harassed for months by the head of department Samir Kumar Sahu, who allegedly demanded sexual favours to clear her attendance backlogs.
Sahu was arrested on July 12 and college principal Dilip Ghosh soon after.
The student had met Balasore MP Pratap Sarangi to report the harassment. She had also posted about the harassment on her X account tagging the Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Majhi, the state’s higher education minister and Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan, who is a Member of Parliament from Odisha. But her pleas went unheard.
The immediate aftermath followed a familiar script, with Majhi promising “strictest punishment under law”.
The state government hastily directed higher education institutions to constitute...
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