Student’s Self-Immolation Shows Officials Act Only Under Pressure, Not Duty

Odisha Student Allegedly Denied Fair Probe into Sexual Harassment

July 14, 2025

Soumyashree Bisi, a college student in Balasore, Odisha, is fighting for her life after setting herself on fire. She had spent months seeking a fair inquiry into her sexual harassment complaint against a professor. Like many such cases in India, hers drew official attention only after her extreme act. Authorities — from college staff to police and politicians — acted only once pressure mounted, not when the complaint was first raised.

Soumyashree is a second-year student of the Integrated B.Ed course at Fakir Mohan College. She accused assistant professor Samira Kumar Sahoo of six months of sexual and mental harassment. She reported the matter to the college principal and faculty and wrote to officials in the Higher Education department, according to The New Indian Express.

She also contacted public representatives, including a local Member of Parliament. After none of this worked, she created an account on X and wrote directly to the Odisha Chief Minister, Union Education Minister, state education minister and senior police officials. Her messages received no reply.

On the morning of the incident, she went to meet the college principal once again. He told her that the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) had cleared the accused. The principal then summoned the professor to his room and proposed a mediation, with both parties present. Soumyashree left the meeting visibly upset. Minutes later, she poured petrol on herself and set herself on fire. She suffered 95 percent burns.

A preliminary inquiry ordered by the district administration pointed to serious lapses. The principal did not inform the Higher Education department about the complaint. The police admitted they had not received a formal complaint from the girl and had been waiting for the ICC report, which never arrived. They did not follow up on the delay.

While citizens routinely face such inaction from authorities in cases of injustice, it becomes even more pronounced when the victim is an ordinary girl or woman. Without influence or visibility, their pleas often remain ignored unless tragedy forces a response. The position of women in Indian society, influenced by long-standing structural inequality, continues to leave them vulnerable to both violence and institutional neglect.

Administratively, the sequence of inaction shows a failure of what public administration theorist Paul Appleby referred to as “administrative responsibility.” Appleby argued that administration is not just technical execution of policy but is deeply value-laden. In his view, public administrators must act responsibly, using discretion carefully, because they often make decisions that affect people’s lives. They must be responsive to citizens’ needs, protecting their rights, and ensuring fairness in governance.

For example, a bureaucrat in charge of food distribution during a drought cannot just say, “I followed the manual.” Administrative responsibility means they must ask: Is this system actually helping the most vulnerable? Do I need to take further steps to fix a gap in delivery? They are expected to act proactively, not passively.

Appleby also argued that public officials have a duty to act not just when compelled by orders but in anticipation of public need and on the basis of ethical judgement.

In this case, no authority acted until the matter exploded – literally – into public consciousness. The ICC did not treat the complaint with rigour, the principal treated it as a disciplinary nuisance, the police did not proactively pursue it and ministers ignored direct appeals.

This points to an ingrained culture of inaction until consequences become visible.

Political scientist Myron Weiner referred to this as the “implementation gap,” when policies or mandates exist but are carried out only under compulsion. Institutions know what ought to be done, but the will to act surfaces only when reputational damage is at stake.

The principle of proactivity, a key tenet of democratic administration, is absent in this pattern.

This reactive administration is deeply linked to the political culture of symbolic response. Elected leaders and officials respond to crisis not because they believe in institutional duty, but because the issue is now too visible to ignore. Soumyashree had directly named the Chief Minister and tagged the entire hierarchy in her public post. None acted, because there was no immediate political cost to inaction.

Once the crisis exploded, only then were suspensions ordered and inquiries initiated. Political theorist Pratap Bhanu Mehta described it as “crisis-led governance,” a system that functions only under duress, not as a matter of routine integrity.

The problem is that this mode of governance produces a self-reinforcing cycle. Officials at lower levels know that they will only be scrutinised if something becomes a public scandal. So they focus on containing complaints, not resolving them. Higher officials respond only when reputational costs rise. Victims, sensing this, often go to extreme lengths just to be heard. The system teaches everyone involved that performance is not judged by ethical conduct, but by public relations management.

This reflects a hollowing out of public service ethics. Institutions exist, laws exist, complaint mechanisms exist. But their purpose is defeated if functionaries see action as optional until a breaking point is reached.

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