Fighting stigma: Who is scared of me, asks HIV positive student

“Who is scared of me? I don’t know”, says 20-year-old Akshara S Kumar, the HIV-positive BA psychology student at Wadihuda Institute of Research and Advanced Studies (WIRAS) in Kannur, who is fighting discrimination after parents of her hostel mates expressed concerns on the “threats” she posed to their children.

In January this year, Akshara told some of her friends that she was HIV-positive, information which she had shared with the college management at the time of her admission. After Akshara’s revelation, there was no palpable change in her friends’ behaviour.

On January 26, however, two teachers from the institute were at her home in Kottiyur, in Kannur district, to inform her mother that two students, one of them Akshara’s roommate, had left the hostel because their parents were “worried”.

In 2004, management of a lower primary school in Kottiyur denied admission to Akshara and her younger brother Ananthakrishnan, children of Shaji Kumar who died of AIDS in 2003, following protests by parents of other students. After Kumar’s death, his wife Rema and two children tested positive for HIV.

The siblings had put the controversies and the hard years behind them as they settled into studies. Akshara was advised by the two teachers to shift to a home run by a charitable organisation. “The students at the hostel say they don’t have a problem; so who is raising the issue? I’m older, I sense the intensity of this discrimination...it’s not like what happened 12 years ago,” Akshara told Deccan Herald. She has decided to seek the intervention of District Collector P Balakiran along with her mother.

Following action from the district administration, the WIRAS management plans to bring Akshara back in the hostel but not before “awareness classes” for students and parents. “We intervened as soon as the issue was brought to our notice. I’ve told the management in unequivocal terms that she has to be brought back,” Balakiran told Deccan Herald.

Akshara is aware of “discussions” but doesn’t sound keen on the prospects. “So far, no one representing the management has even called me but I can’t sulk over that; my first semester examination starts on April 27. I want to study,” she said.