[Question] Did you graduate from Calcutta University or other corrupt State Universities? What was it like?

I want to know if other people have had this experience. I looked for this conversation on reddit but there wasn't any, at least not the way I know is true.

I can't speak English much so sorry if I make mistakes I'll try not to.

(if this seems East/Northeast centric, sory about that also.)

I want to say about the corruption in colleges/student unions in Bengal/Bihar, and the trauma it causes in young students. It's something students face everyday and considering the fact that we talk about it irl everyday, there should be some conversation going on about this on the Internet regularly, but there's literally none. Both you and I can think of reasons for that.

Scenes like these are nothing out of the usual here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuaF9dqdQGw , and it gets stupider the more you live and travel and work with and get to know the common citizens here.

I want to get at the remoteness, and strange difficulty in explaining what's so clear. Here in the East, this must be what North Korea's like, at least for the middle class. If seems I'm jumping the gun here, really what can I do, this is how I feel. My college mates, and I talk about this (along with our studies) everyday. But then when I log on to reddit it's like a different Universe, like there's two different Indias.

There are 9 crore lives in Bengal out of which the 0-25 age group comprises 52%. (A big part of us is made of students from the Northeast, AngoIndians and other regions and many are of mixed descent; I want to also add to this the adjoining region of Bihar and Orissa -- we're more same than we are different. We're the same, we just want to study and get jobs be productive human beings and good citizens forever.) Graduating is a very difficult thing. It's hard to explain. Many graduate, but more don't -- it's a survivorship bias. It's insanity but you must go through it. The people who survive may be stronger and wiser that assuredly has nothing to do with the what they went through. I'll tell you more about graduation ...

We are students of Surendranath College, Bongobashi College, Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose College, Chittaranjan College etc. etc. (and such others universites: https://www.news18.com/news/india/students-assault-teachers-in-west-bengal-colleges-635841.html).

Everyday you have to fight -- every single day -- with goons and Trinamool (or other) party members and even paid police officers who stand at the gate of colleges extorting money from young students (they call it "donation"). Some days when class is over they won't let you out (it's how they collect mobs to join rallies) and that is when you fight and get your face restructured. Nobody at home understands what you have gone through from English period at 10 O'clock to history at 1 pm.

Before exams the party members/student unions withhold your admit card and you must pay them Rs1000 (that you bargain with them like 'I only have R500/Rs100 etc.') to get that back. The teachers and the staff members -- are helpless idiots who turn a blind eye (not always: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Trinamool-Chhatra-Parishad-men-stall-Malda-College-admissions/articleshow/20921144.cms), even though they know everything that's going on, they'll happily join in teacher's day celebrations etc. with the TMC party members. No one will go with you to the police and when you go alone you can be sure there's a TMC member sitting right there inside the police station having chai singhara with the thanedaar.

Some days a month there's a political agitation or something and they force you join these rallies. Again you punch and kick in order to be able to go home (aware that no one will support you). If you want to complete these 3 years you have to accede to these abuses and protest with them carrying the Indian flag and blocking roads and doing all kinds of political theatre which means nothing to you. It has convinced me that when we see on tv/media that "the youth is rising up" or "protestors are passionately protesting" most of that is bullshit and probably 90% of them are there because they are forced and then just decided to go along with it to look like a bollywood hero etc.

The stupidest fight I was forced into was when I refused to let a "bhai" cut in line in front of me. At the end I had to say goodbye to my favorite blue shirt that got torn in the fight. Just one of the many stupid things I had to go through to get a BSc degree.

By the third year, 1/3rd of the students of a class drop out or fail. Out of these, half join the student union because that's the only way they see in life (we are made functionaly unemployable) and spend their lives pushing the party agenda and cleaning of their shit. The boys are employed as permanent security guards to spy on us -- the students who actually want to study. The Chief Minister throws them a bone occasionally in the form of funds or employed as muscle during ministerial visits etc. The union members are trained to use girls to push their political agenda. It's become an effective strategy: they look for obsequious girls who'll do anything for popularity. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Asutosh-college-student-beaten-up-by-TMCP-member/articleshow/52534897.cms When such personalities realize they've the chance to win the affection of a goon they see it is as some kind of bollywood gangster romance and do whatever the masters tell them.

The girls are always put in front of rallies, and they're informed from the beginning that if police stops them they must cry and allege being molested by police. The CM has good thing going for her, she's covering herself from all fronts.

I was working before I joined college but I'm finding it very difficult to do two things at once. 75% attendance is compulsory (I've heard most students pay money to the TMC to mark them present. money like Rs5000-Rs1000). There are many people like me who has no choice, I need the degree to sit for goverment exams, I have no family or relations that looks after me. So I have to be a part of this corrupt structure where teachers are mostly absent, the breaks between classess is 2-3 hours, every holiday every festival is "donation" time, and you must constantly be ready to fight party members from abusing your human rights. There's no video evidence on YouTube about any of the stuff I have just said, why am I even trying to explain haha!

TMC and other political parties have for long time used this weapon called DIVIDE AND RULE. She injects her party affiliates into our colleges to spy on students and teachers and staff members -- any person who questions among their friends or refuses a party order.

What prompted me to write this is that a friend of mind dropped of college in second year after she failed. She didn't answer my calls for a while, but later we spoke, after which we she stopped talking to any of us. She told me that the party members took Rs18,000 from her during admission, so that was around 2 years ago. (admission cost is around Rs 2000-3000). But she has nothing in writing and no proof even the staff members won't corroborate her story (even they're corrupt, they take Rs200 from every student during admission and return a receipt which says "received Rs40 with thanks." ask me why no one says anything). No one seems to care. I believe her, but but I have no proof. The impression is that she dropped out because she failed, but I know she was a good student. Sometimes students don't want to work anymore when they see there is no point education. I did find some stuff reported but the news is too equivocal: https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/extortion-racket-on-wb-campuses-student-unions-barred-from-running-admission-help-desks/story-ZbQKQWvR4ey69L4jGi9T0O.html.

This isn't the life I want to live. But I've no choice and no where to go. I wouldn't feel this way if more people talked about this, about the problems faced by the real people of Eastern India (not just what's happening in/around assembly building/ a stroll with favorite ministers/ fallen bridges etc.). The mentality of students like us who actually go there to study becomes: I have no choice but to keep my eyes lowered and complete my graduation and not answer back when they harrass and make racist comments and not complain when they keep me after college for hours to go to their "activism" for the cameras when I should be at home studying, otherwise I won't be able to graduate. Nihilism is not a choice, I think.

I'm constantly aware that anecdotal evidence has no value. So I'll just say it: the students of Bengal are feel suffocated in colleges. Our politicians are destroying lives -- have destroyed countless number of lives. In 2012 Tamil Nadu (12.5%), Maharashtra (11.9%) and West Bengal (11.0%) had the highest proportion of suicides. The cause of depression and suicide among the young cannot be relegated to examinations and peer pressure (although it is a kind of). I don't know what each person is going through but I understand the helplessness that they feel and there is noone talking about the problems. Obviously, none of this is going to stop me anytime. Thanks for listening..