Nandini Gupta, an undergraduate Double Major in Journalism & Dramatics Literature, New York University points out how media coverage in India of the COVID-19 impact on students neglected one important aspect: their mental health
The room is dimly lit. Seated on the cold floor, a young boy plays the bansuri. His fingers delicately rise and fall to block the finger holes on the lower end of the Indian instrument. His eyes close softly as the music intensifies. The dingy door creaks open. The music stops. Two boys walk in. Palpable tension hangs in the air. All of a sudden, Achyutha Ananda Mamidipudi starts laughing. “Why are you guys in your underwear?”
It’s not unusual for Mamidipudi’s roommates to sit, stand, sing, and dance in their underwear. It’s not unusual for Mamidipudi to get distracted during his flute practice because of his roommates. But he doesn’t mind it.
A high school senior, Mamidipudi has to leave his house full of friends soon. Having spent the last two years in Kodaikanal, a remote hill station in southern India, Mamidipudi has developed mixed feelings about leaving. But, all is not lost. He’s excited to finally get his arangetram in flute (a graduation ceremony in which the gurus or teachers present their students to the public). He’ll be staying with his guru to master the instrument. Or so he thought.
With the rising COVID-19 cases in India, Mamidipudi has been confined to the four walls of his room. Any hopes of achieving the arangetram have been shattered and so have dreams of studying history and politics in London. The pandemic hasn’t made things easy for him or for that matter, any student.
Several Indian students have had to take the highly competitive engineering and medical exams to earn a seat in some of the nation’s elite universities. With no strict COVID-19 protocols in place for the exams, students have voiced their concerns as detailed in a Los Angeles Times article. “But if these exams occur, the government’s plans don’t guarantee safety for everyone – it could violate our right to life,” said Bhuraj Pokhrel in a phone interview with the newspaper.
Having postponed the exam twice previously, the government didn’t show any indication of delaying the annual tests further. Students, especially those in Bihar, a northeastern state in India, faced trouble in accessing their test centers due to excessive flooding. Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg, supported Indian students in their plea to postpone exams by tweeting, “It’s deeply unfair that students of India are asked to sit national exams during the Covid-19 pandemic and while millions have also been impacted by the extreme floods. I stand with their call to #PostponeJEE_NEETinCOVID.”
Besides posting 3 million tweets on Twitter against the exam in one day, Indian students wore black armbands and took part in a virtual hunger strike to pressure the government into postponing the exams. The National Testing Agency (NTA) in charge of organising the JEE and NEET exams, claimed that the tests were being conducted in the “interest of the students and the country,” as highlighted in an Al Jazeera article. But most students disagreed.
An aspiring engineer, Arihant Sheth, feels that protesting against the Indian government is a waste of time. “I made a Twitter account to take part in the online protests. But, it was pointless because who’s even going to watch these tweets and bother about them?” recalled Arihant in a phone interview. “In the end, the government just released a statement making clear that the decision on the exams was final. That was it. That was the end.”
There were limited news organizations, which sided with students. “A lot of news channels were supporting the government’s decision because they are paid off,” continued Arihant. “Some of these channels are the most-watched channels in India. Some of them have been included in a lot of scams and malpractices.”
But, this wasn’t the main problem.
Students’ mental health was neglected by the Indian media.
Seated by the window, the cool breeze blows Mamidipudi’s long, satiny hair. His mind wanders to the past: his roommates in their underwear, school camps to Poondi, and flute performances. He hasn’t seen his friends since and his flute is nowhere to be found.
Coping with depression and anxiety, Mamidipudi’s mental health hit rock bottom during the pandemic. “It’s very tough to deal with those two things because they’re busy making my life a living hell,” felt Mamidipudi. “During the lockdown, I was extremely lonely. I used to worry about whether or not my friends like me. I used to worry about if I would ever become something successful in my life. There were days when I wouldn’t even get out of bed.”
A New York Post article highlighted incidents of three public school students committing suicide due to the absence of in-person learning. The Department of Education confirmed an overall rise in the suicide rate. But this wasn’t enough for the Indian press to cover the mental health of Indian students.
Instead, they focused on the lack of electronic gadgets and Wi-Fi.
Students belonging to low-income families didn’t have the required electronic devices for online classes. A picture of a girl studying on a rooftop went viral soon enough.
“It could bring education out of the clutches of the rich-poor divide,” said Ratnadeep Gupta, an educationist, to UCA News. While the gap between the rich and poor must be spotlighted, mental health shouldn’t be undermined.
Raj Nandini Sandeep Shinde, a girl belonging to a low-income family, believes she was fortunate to access online classes using a phone, although Wi-Fi issues compelled her to sit outside her neighbour’s house to boost the Wi-Fi signal. However, she was more concerned about her mental health.
“I somehow managed to learn by myself. But that’s not the point. I was lonely. I thought the situation would get better soon. But, it didn’t. I didn’t know what I could do to make the situation better,” she said (the interview was conducted in Hindi).
Creative approaches to make education accessible to all are being implemented. A VOA News article surveys such methods: community classes held by volunteers and vans equipped with loudspeakers traversing villages for students to hear their teachers while at home.
While students are learning, their mental health is rotting away. And no press is casting it a second glance.
Whether it’s Al Jazeera’s article on Kashmiri students returning to in-person school after two years or CNN’s article on creating learning apps to democratise education, the press is diligently neglecting student mental health. Especially the Indian press, where no articles were dedicated to this issue.
Many Indians perceive mental illness as a fictional concern. Individuals suffering from it outcasts.
“After COVID-19, Indians are becoming more open-minded towards mental illness. But, it’s still a taboo and a lot of people don’t really believe in it,” said Tiaakum Longchari, an international student studying at the University of Charleston. “In the United States, the situation is different. Students face no obstruction to talk about their mental health.”
Along with focusing on exams amidst COVID-19 and the rich-poor divide, the Indian media needs to step up its game and inform the public about mental health. Community-based societies should spread awareness and local newspapers must initiate long due discussions, for starters.
“Don’t actively ignore this topic,” Mamidipudi reminds the Indian media. “Stop being as conservative as you are right now.”
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