Saira Sirohi's suicide reveals the harsh reality of India's education system

Swimming prodigy Saira Sirohi’s suicide evokes nationwide outcry; who is to be held responsible?

16-year-old Saira Sirohi of Ghaziabad would have represented India in the upcoming 2020 Olympics, if only she was allowed to breathe.

Police said Saira Sirohi’s sister found her body hanging by a shawl from a ventilator located above a door in her room. The girl had woken up for a glass of water around 1.30 am when she made the discovery.

“We have sent the body for a post-mortem examination. We did not find a suicide note in the house during the initial search,” said Ashok Shishodia, SHO of the Kavi Nagar police station.

As Sirohi’s parents were still in a state of shock, they were not in a position to throw light on the possible reasons for her taking the extreme step, he added.

The victim, a Class 11 student of the Delhi Public School in Ghaziabad, had shot into the limelight in September 2008, when she swam non-stop for nearly 38 km at the age of eight. Sirohi had even drawn praise from Asian Games silver medallist Khazan Singh for this achievement. “Nearly 40 km in a day is incredible. Even when I was training for the Olympics, I never swam more than five hours a day – and that too in two shifts. Even the distance I covered was never more than 20 km,” Singh had said.

Sirohi had three elder sisters, two of whom were married.

“All of us are shocked because she (Sirohi) had very strong willpower. She never got bogged down. She has won nearly 200 medals at various events since childhood. When she spoke to me on Sunday evening, she sounded normal enough. She said she will be concentrating on her studies for her upcoming examinations,” said her coach Raju Chaudhary.

The Olympic aspirant apparently hanged herself to death, after falling victim to Indian Education system’s pressure.

For any parent, losing their child is devastating enough and knowing that he/she succumbed to the pressure of expectations is shattering at another level.

Four days since the incident occurred, her parents have come on record to reveal the reason behind the suicide. Training to represent India at the 2020 Olympics, Saira shocked the swimming fraternity last to last month by swimming for 15 hours non stop and covering a total distance of 38 kilometres.

There was serious pressure from her school to excel in her academics. Due to the 2015 National Aquatics Championship, Saira had missed a few half yearly papers.

Her Coach Raju Chaudhary said, “For the past couple of weeks, Saira was refusing to come for training, I wanted to talk to her father about it but never got the time. The school told her that if she would fail even in another paper, she would be expelled from the school. She was a bit tentative about that and was ready to forgot her swimming for that. That is something I've never seen Saira do. She had appeared for her back papers and I think had one more to go. However, there was nothing extreme about her behaviour.”

Saira's father Jaideep, retired from his job with the Uttar Pradesh Police to help fuel her dream was still shocked. "At 1.30 am, my younger daughter started crying loudly. I thought someone had entered the house and rushed to their room. But I couldn't open the door easily though it had not been bolted from inside. When I managed to push it open, I found Saira had hanged herself from the grille above the door. I brought her down and put her on the bed but she was cold and stiff," Jaideep said.

Police said they were informed around 5 am on Monday. "Saira was playing a game on her phone. She told she will study for an hour or so and then sleep," her sister said. "I felt thirsty in the middle of the night and woke up. That's when I found Saira hanging against the door."

 

He added, “She had shown no signs of any distress, in fact she told me that she would study for a few hours and go to sleep.”Jaideep went onto add that there was a lot of pressure from Saira to perform from school. He said, “She missed a few exams during her championship, and the school made it clear that she has to pass her exams, if she didn't, she would be rusticated.”

Jyoti Gupta, the principal of Saira's school, said they had put no pressure on the girl. "She was studying in our school since Class 5. She would miss exams every now and then. We have her full liberty to choose the date and time on which she wished to appear in the papers she missed. A teacher and other staff members would be on standby to help her appear in these papers. We always prepared diluted question papers for her. She had finished appearing in three back papers on January 21. She had also appeared in an assessment of speaking and listening test on Saturday which was for all students of Class XI. On Monday, she was to appear in a unit test that was scheduled for the entire school," Gupta said.

The 2015 CBSE school swimming champion is no more, but her legacy will be etched onto history books. Her Coach added, “It was a privilege to train such a dedicated athlete, I assure you Olympic participation would have been a piece of cake for her. She also broke the CBSE National record recently.”

Saira's suicide is a failure for India's education system, which often generalises the notion of growth to academic success. It's time we contemplate whether a 'unit test' can be rated higher than someone's will to exceed in life. 

Police have not been registered a case yet. "As per the autopsy report, death was caused by strangulation due to hanging. The ligature mark on the neck bore a V-shape. The mobile phone of the deceased girl has not been handed over to police yet. Further investigations are under way," said Ajaypal, SP (City), Ghaziabad.

How can we expect kids to outgrow when they are being pressurized under the pretext of suffocating academics?

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google
• Tumblr
• Pinterest

About Muhammad Zeeshan