Assam student commits suicide due to father's inability to buy phone. Here's his tragic story

Guwahati: At a time when smartphones and smart classes have been championed as a "way forward" for learning, the suspected suicide of an Assam student in the Bodo-tribe dominated Chirang district has left the region in a state of absolute shock and gloom.

Subungsar Narzary, a Class 10 student from the BTAD district, took shelter in the cold arms of lady death, reportedly because his lower-middle-class father could not afford a smartphone. On a breezy Tuesday in summer June, the minor killed himself by hanging himself from a tree near his house. All he left behind was a suicide note. In the note, he elaborated on his cause for committing suicide at such a tender age. The student could not attend the online classes opened by the state Education Department recently and he cited as much in the letter, reports said.

After the death of the 15-year-old Assam student, Bodo leaders, including those from the apex student body, ABSU, have come forward asking the Government to devise new methods of imparting education to the students. Methods that do not entail the spending of thousands of rupees.

A resident of the nondescript Salmari hamlet in one of the remoter areas of Assam, Narzary was reportedly the son of a daily-wage earner, the hardest hit criteria of working-class people who were left in a deplorable state due to the unexpected lockdown. However, nobody saw the coronavirus approaching, fewer still foresaw the lockdown that was imposed to arrest the spread of the contagion.

What this lockdown has done is it has exposed the disparity in income among the classes in India. Although billionaires continue to count their bills, the poorer classes were left friend-less, close to starvation, and hundreds of miles away from home. Deprived of food and money, thousands trudged hundreds of miles to their hometowns. While some were killed in horrific accidents along the highway. Ones with existing medical conditions were killed not due to COVID, but because of other ailments.

Although phones have become smarter and AI (artificial intelligence) is set to replace millions in the workforce in years to come, the complexity of the human condition is definitely something that needs to be studied in greater detail in the era of technology.

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