Not just Rohit, we should protest all ‘institutional murders’: Sohini Dasgupta

KOLKATA: Director Sohini Dasgupta has spoken out against the way the government has been addressing the suicide of Rohith Vemula. This comes after her cousin, Suchisree Chatterjee, went on an indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi to “regain from the state the basic human dignity that is rightfully ours”.
Speaking to TOI, Sohini said, “We have seen how the government has addressed FTII issue regarding Gajendra Chauhan taking over the chairmanship of the institute.Also we see how the Censor Board is operating in spite of continual protest from film fraternity. I extend my support to Suchisree for staging her protest this way. We have grown up together and I know she is a very sincere and concerned person. I have a lot of faith in her. I know she is on a hunger strike because she has conviction in what she is doing.”
A student of Patha Bhavan in Kolkata, Suchisree completed her honours course from Loreto College before she went on to do her masters in Geography from JNU last year. “My sister is a very meritorious student. While I extend all my support to her, I also understand that there are times when students are driven only by passion and not reason. It’s important for them to see things in the right perspective,” Sohini said, while adding that it is crucial to speak out against all the student suicides across India. “Not just Rohit, we should protest all ‘institutional murders’. Sadly, we tend to overlook many other ‘institutional murders’ in our country. That’s just because they fail to be in the national focus. We have this tendency to put incidents into some brackets. We like to club things under the dalit issue, the minority issue or even class issue. But while doing this, we also miss the woods for the trees.”
Meanwhile, Suchisree said, “This is the fifth day of my hunger strike. Today, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president and vice president have also participated in the indefinite hunger strike. Many others have also joined in. That makes ten of us.”