Over 70 years after India's independence, less than 5 per cent of students enrolled in higher education are tribals, and more than 65 per cent of tribal students drop out over the course of schooling up to Class 10 (MHRD, 2016). Is the burden of this failure--the failure to retain children from the most marginalised communities within the fold of education--to be placed on the children and their families? Or is this a collective failure as a nation, one for which a state and society riddled with inequalities should be held answerable? This article examines the March 2019 death of 16-year-old Manita, found hanging from a tree just outside the village of Rouni, nestled in the "sal"-forested hills of Jashpur in Chhattisgarh, India and how it relates to the impact of marginalisation of certain communities in India.