In a commendable acknowledgement of mental health issues affecting its student population — after at least three suicides were reported so far this year — IIT Kharagpur recently announced that it will be introducing programmes that offer support for students in distress. However, the first initiative that was widely publicised, ‘Campus Mothers’, has rightfully been criticised for its patriarchal underpinning. The institution has since clarified that ‘Campus Mothers’ is only a part of a five-pronged approach to inculcating greater mental health among students, and is not to be treated as a stand-alone effort.
The idea behind ‘Campus Mothers’ is that trained volunteers who reside on campus, who may be faculty or non-faculty — and who necessarily must be women and mothers — will provide mentorship for students in the form of conversations and shared meals, with initial contact being made via an AI platform. Speaking on the venture, IIT Kharagpur’s new director Suman Chakraborty told the press, “Having gone through motherhood, they understand the unique challenges children face”.
This sentiment is patently untrue: women who are mothers are not capable of greater empathy than others; motherhood in itself does not impart any particular virtues; young adults attending college should not be infantilised; and the emotional labour that is being requested from these volunteers is highly gendered and merely replicates the cultural burden placed on women to nurture — as though to do so is our intrinsic gift. Moreover, the request itself is also unethical. Unsurprisingly, there has also been criticism from mental health professionals who question why paid, professional care has been eschewed in this framework. The institution however clarified that the ‘Campus Mothers’ programme will not replace such care, only supplement it.
But, what is care in the context of high-pressure academic environments? Pastoral care for students at any level, but perhaps particularly at the early tertiary level — where adult life essentially begins — is something that needs to be well-calibrated to suit the broader concerns of time, place, and sociopolitical currents; but must equally address very individual realities. It is something that institutions should offer, sensitively and inclusively. But providing such care is delicate, and even people with teaching experience may not be suited to do it. Given this, to presume that any person who happens to be a mother is qualified or automatically capable of this work is deeply unenlightened. There is a vast difference between being a caregiver and having maternal experience.
Moreover, the concept of recruiting mothers to offer mental health support is essentially a utilisation of the widespread misconception that women are more emotionally intelligent than men, and is not feminist in nature. It appears complimentary but only reinforces gender roles, reduces male accountability, and restricts women’s multi-dimensionality and agency.
IIT Kharagpur seems to have cleaned up its PR around this initiative in the days since it was first announced, but the fact that something like ‘Campus Mothers’ went through many rounds of bureaucracy — unchallenged, or with challenges dismissed — doesn’t bode well. We do need well-designed, meaningful programmes within institutional infrastructures that provide holistic support for students’ well-being, and those serious about building them may learn from the backlash.