A government scholarship took them abroad. But then left them in a lurch

For a few weeks after Aditi Kumar arrived in New York City to pursue her masters, she could not afford a mattress. She had carried a few coats with her, which she owned because her family belonged to a cold, mountainous region in India. She piled these one on top of another, threw a bedsheet over them and went to sleep.

Soon, however, she started to suffer from backaches. Kumar realised she could not put off the purchase any longer and bought a mattress. But she could not afford a blanket and was worried about how she would manage in the cold – she was relieved when a friend lent her an old blanket.

This was just one of the many struggles that Kumar faced after she travelled to the United States to begin a master’s programme. (She, like all the students Scroll spoke to for this story, asked to be identified by a pseudonym.) These struggles were particularly bitter because a year earlier, Kumar had been awarded the National Overseas Scholarship, administered by the Indian government’s ministry of social justice and empowerment. The scholarship “aims to empower low-income students from marginalised communities, including the Scheduled Castes, denotified nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, landless agricultural labourers...

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