Justice for Richard Loitam

April 24 2012

Pix Courtesy of FB group for Richard

Sir,

I write this to bring to your notice a matter that has been of great grievance to a lot of friends of the recently deceased Richard Loitam and me. I was a senior of his at The Assam Valley School and was gravely upset to hear of his demise. What infuriated me was the incident that led up to his death - the undeniable silliness of it.

I am quite sure you are well aware of what occurred within your campus's premises that evening and it is not in my place to demand any answer from you. Nonetheless, I would like to express my concerns, mostly in deference to Richard and because it would be inhumane for one who knew him to not do so.

I do wish the institute would not disregard all those who knew him, particularly his family, by dismissing the entire incident as an "accident" and example of "drug abuse". It is ruthless to kill someone in an act of fury, but surely it is as ruthless to dismiss cold-blooded murder when one is at a position to take serious action against it and its perpetrators.

I do apologise for the remarks I make, but this reeks of yet another event where an institute fears besmirching its name and resorts to claiming ignorance about a crime. It does not speak of an institute with a healthy learning environment when the seniors in it are prone to mindlessly beat a junior to death over a stimuli as flimsy as switching a television channel during an Indian Premier League match. I understand that most of one's education comes from schools and hence it is too much to ask of an institute to instil in its' students a feeling of basic humanity and compassion in the brief three or five years that it houses them. But, it does not bode well for an institute when its' students feel free to slaughter a boy with absolutely no fear of authority, no respect for life and no love in their hearts.

There is clearly something gravely missing in the education your institute provides to its students. Sure they arrive to learn architecture, but what about being better men and women? I am led to derive that your institute does not provide a healthy atmosphere for benevolent interaction. It is instead an institute that will churn out a mindless set of heartless architects with no love for their art. For how can a man love art when he cannot love the human who gave birth to art? How can a man create beauty when he cannot love the human that admires beauty? How can he create homes when he cannot love a boy that had his own dreams?

It pains me to bring to notice the racial and communalist angle to this sordid tale, but I must do so, not as a threat but as representative of a trend of opinion circulating amongst many who have heard of this incident. Richard was from Manipur, a state in the much ignored North-East region of India. Is that the reason why this matter is treated so frivolously? Were a boy from mainland India beaten to death - do not deign to deny that the furore over it would be enormous and the institute would take the matter to the media and to the courts. Perhaps, you never saw this boy from the North-East as anything but a bundle of money in exchange for an education which has proved to be unworthy of the name.

I am as appalled by the state of your inaction as head of the institute and surely a father-figure to many, as I am by the insensitivity, nay, inhumanity of the criminals who murdered Richard. Acharya NRV School of Architecture houses boys who beat to death a fellow student over an argument on cricket, but it houses something far more disgusting and putrid - a director, a man, who cannot stand up for justice, not for a stranger, but justice for one of his own.

Your's,

Tenzin Yangki
University of Warwick