What does Pratik’s unwritten suicide note tell us?

A student of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology recently committed suicide. The family alleges certain teachers of the university are responsible. Taifur Rahman Pratik, a meritorious student who stood first in his honours at the biotechnology department of the university, was allegedly given poor marks and not provided with any supervisor in his Master’s. His dream of being a teacher was shattered.

Debates range as to whether he should have protested instead of committing suicide and whether the teachers were responsible for his predicament. Many maintain that such ‘trivial’ issues should not trigger such extreme ‘emotion’.

Some see this as ‘revengeful’, some as ‘impulsive’ while many try to unearth the incidents leading to the outcome.

The debates also include the possibility of Pratik not being ‘raised’ in a manner to cope with times. However, such opinions do not differ in one clear thing that it was a ‘death’. How ‘proper’ or ‘improper’ the factors might have been, they led to a suicide. Undoubtedly, it was the end of a youth to whom the country and a family were contributing to receive a responsible citizen, a human being.

But, unfortunately, Pratik did not find any more dreams, aspirations and challenges to go ahead. There remained no reason for him to keep on living. He retired. This is a time of resignation, of silent protest or surrender.

Though Pratik’s family tried to help him understanding his deep frustrations over academic results, they could not finally save him. The direct and ultimate cost is mostly for them to bear and then the state.

Here comes the indirect cost. What about the hundreds of thousands of students who are entering the public universities every year and education being their only means for a decent, standard life?

According to a Prothom Alo report, seven students of Dhaka University alone committed suicide in the year 2018. The number is alarming.

An Altaf Parvez article in Prothom Alo (published in 2018) said, the global scenario of suicide includes older persons more whereas in Bangladesh this is youth.

Loneliness, frustration, depression are the primary reasons among the older people for committing suicide. Is the Bangladeshi youth grappling with this old age problems? Are they not having the basic enthusiasm, dreams and challenges of young age?

In 2016, a BBS (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics) survey said in one year the country had created only 0.3 million new jobs while the actual need was of 1.3 million. On top of that, another BBS study said 75 per cent of the unemployed population was youth. Also, the more one is educated the less is the chance to be hired.

According to the World Health Organization around 6.4 million people in the country are suffering from depression.

A country whose majority of the population is youth now (according to UNDP report 2016, 49 per cent of the population is under the age of 24), cannot overlook the issue of youth.

Just a day before Pratik’s suicide, in a Prothom Alo column, Faruk Wasif reminisced the former chief justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman who in the Pakistan regime, protested against his not being appointed as a teacher despite obtaining a first class. The protest was a spectacular one as he hung a cigarette tray across his shoulders inscribed with ‘Muhammad Habibur Rahman, M.A. First Class’ and roamed across the campus as a vendor. The article said there were some teachers still who felt ashamed for such disgrace of their student.

About seventy years on, students can resort to death but not to a single person in their surrounding in the independent country, but why? We should try answering that.

*Nusrat Nowrin is a journalist at Prothom Alo. She can be contacted at <[email protected]>