The charges leading to his suspension also include encouraging others to watch “Ram Ke Naam,” a national award-winning documentary.

“Such a pseudo-nationalistic evaluation of students by the TISS administration can only be viewed as an attempt to crush the voices of dissent against the BJP-Sangh Parivar, “says a statement issued by the forum today. “As a first-generation learner, Ramadas has consistently and unequivocally defended student rights in campus. He has worked hard to build joint platforms and alliances among all student organizations.”

Ramadas also represents the ‘United Students of India’, the joint platform comprising of 16 major student organizations across the country. The targeting of students by the TISS administration appears to be nothing more than an attempt to appease the ruling BJP.

Victimising a student from Dalit background also aligns with the BJP’s broader project to exclude students from marginalized communities from higher education. Such actions undoubtedly tarnish the independent academic credibility of the institute. The USI stands in solidarity with Ramadas, as well as other progressive students at TISS, in their fight against this unjust action, says the statement.

The forum has also reminded the institution that such attempts always fail. Besides demanding a withdrawal of the suspension, the organisation has urged all other like-minded student organisations and the democratic section of the country to come forward to resist this attack on democracy.

Among the signatories are Prasenjit for the United Students of India (AISA) Dinesh Seerangaraj (AISF) Amit Singh (AISB) Priyanka Bharti (CJRD) Anurag Nigam (CYSS) Prince Ennares Periyar (Dravidian Students Federation) CVMP Ezhilarasan (DMK Student wing) Anagha Pradeep (DSF) Nitish Gaur (NSUI) Lagan Mangla (PSF) Nowfal Md. Saifulla (PSU) Dr. Imran (Samajwadi Chhatrasabha) Devabrata Saikia (Satro Mukti Sangam Samiti) Aravind B (Students’ Federation of Dravidians) Mayukh Biswas (SFI) and Sujit Tripura (TSU)

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Rajneesh Kumar Ambedkar, a PhD scholar at Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Wardha, Maharashtra, India, has been sitting on a satyagraha at the university campus. He was forced to go on strike after the university administration failed to address his grievances.  

Ambedkar has alleged that he is being victimised by the university administration because of his Dalit identity.  Narrating his case, Ambedkar said his PhD thesis was submitted long back with all due process followed. His supervisor was satisfied with his work and he recommended the work for external evaluation.  

But the university administration, instead of sending his work to external examiners and facilitating the process of the award of the degree, has so far kept the thesis to itself.  

Months after the submission of the work, Ambedkar was told by the university to re-work his thesis under a new supervisor. Ambedkar argued that such conditionality is arbitrary and against the rule and he is being victimized for being a Dalit as well as being a vocal person about the issues of social justice.  

For a couple of days, Ambedkar and his friends have been sitting on strike. The administration has so far remained aloof from his problems. But a mob, perceived to be close to the establishment, came to the protest site a few days back, raising objectionable slogans. The mob allegedly assaulted activists as well. Later, Ambedkar’s injured friends were sent to the hospital. 

Amid this critical situation, Ambedkar continues fighting for social justice and democratisation of education.  

However, it cannot be ruled out that his life as well as his career is under threat. It appears not that an insensitive university system is pushing a Dalit scholar to meet the fate of Rohith Vemula and Darshan Solanki.  

Through an online interview conducted on April 1, 2023, I learnt from him about his case and his struggle. 

Here is the link to the interview: 

(The author is a PhD, JNU, New Delhi)

Related:

File FIR against Head Counsellor, Ms Hima Anaredy under Atrocities Act: NCST to IIT Mumbai

SC favours conciliation in case of caste based discrimination against Dalit faculty: IIT-Kanpur

March 2023 Round up of attacks on Dalits

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Dig a little deeper into this idea (or just read the news) and you will soon find that this is hogwash. Campuses in India, much like the Indian society, are spaces where not only caste flourishes, but it also seeks to cut down on any voice that erupts from the marginalised sections. Yes, more Dalit and Bahujan students are now studying in these campuses than ever, yet as even the most basic conversation with Dalit-Bahujan student shows, their presence has not made their lives easier in these campuses. If anything, these spaces are even more ruthless in clamping down on any dissent especially when such dissent seeks to expose the brutal reality of these campuses.

The death of Rohith Vemula in the Hyderabad Central University in 2016 brought the nation’s attention to the disease of casteism that flourishes in Indian Universities, but as is well known it was neither the first nor the last. Ask the five students of the English and Foreign Language University in Hyderabad who chose to speak against a casteist faculty that had time and again, humiliated students because of their caste. The faculty, Meenakshi Reddy did not stop at that, however. In a move that is unprecedented even in India, she became probably the first faculty to ever file a case of defamation against the five students in 2012 and in fact, she even won her case towards the end of 2016, with the Nampally civil court sentencing the five students to six months of imprisonment. However, that order was challenged and the students were able to get bail. Both parties challenged the order, and the case is in now in the Nampally Sessions Court.

‘We have been made to feel like criminals and hide’

This correspondent met one of the defendants in the premises of a University. The defendant (name not revealed as the case is presently underway) works at a college as a faculty. I asked how he got a job if he had a case against him? “I do not know…maybe the administration does not know”, he says almost with a laugh. “If truth be told, despite having the highest degrees and the required experience, I still feel like my job is more due to luck than because of my degrees,” he adds as he sips his tea.

The entire issue of ‘defaming’ a person revolves around the issue of Dalit-Bahujan students protesting against the casteist practices of Meenakshi Reddy, a faculty at the Department of German, which was consistently ignored by the administration.

In 2011, the Osmania University (OU) police questioned two university professors including Meenakshi Reddy after the National Human Rights Commission (HRC) took notice of R Jayamurugan, a Dalit student pursuing German, who claimed that he was being failed consistently in his semester examinations, which forced him to discontinue the course. In 2012, one more Dalit student, Kush Kumar, from the same department tried to commit suicide by consuming pills after he ‘failed’ his exams. According to the defendants we spoke to, these are not mere unfortunate incidents of students failing to cope up with the pressure. “When different students are pointing out that a certain faculty is consistently biased against students from a certain community, how can that be ignored? What does this show, if not an absolute disregard to the problems that we are facing?” the defendant added.

Of the five defendants-R Bathran, M Sriramulu, Upendra, Satish and Mohan–only Sriramulu was a student of the German department and had alleged discrimination at the hands of Reddy since 2011. Others were merely ensuring their support to Sriramulu through protests and agitations. Bathran, in fact, was merely booked because he provided a platform, Dalit Camera, to Sriramulu to voice his pain and the discrimination he had been facing.

One of the other defendants we spoke to, who is currently working at a state university, said this was again a great example of how casteist Reddy had been. “Our issue did not happen overnight nor did it get over in a week. This issue was written about in various local and national dailies. But she booked Dalit camera? Why? If this does not show her casteist nature, then what does? Bathran had been a student leader here and he had both seen and experienced the casteist nature of a number of faculties here. By booking Bathran also, she showed that she is after Dalit Bahujan students who wish to expose the true nature of the campus,” he added.

The defendants also point out that while the civil court pointed out to the terms like “Reddy harasses’, ‘Feudal Reddy’ were used by the court to point out the act of defamation, but even six months later after the verdict, they are unaware as to what damage was caused to Reddy. “If we defamed her, then she must have suffered because of it, right? How? She continues to be in the same job that she was. How did her life change? We have been humiliated for over five years, forced to live a closed life and have been visiting the courts for the past five years. I cannot apply anywhere now because of this case. Yet somehow, we are still debating over how she was defamed,” one defendant said.

‘The longer this case goes, the more trouble for us’

The two defendants also pointed out that contrary to the perception that the order being challenged was a good thing for them, they are actually worried. “The longer this case goes, the more trouble it will be for us. We are all first-generation learners from our families and all this costs us a lot of money. She is a faculty, so money is not an issue for her but we have to think about it,” said one of the defendants.

“If I lose my job, I have absolutely no clue what options will I be left with. And if this case reaches the High Court, then I am almost sure that we will not win this case,” he added. His fears are not completely unfounded. Reddy is the daughter of Obul Reddy, who served as the Chief Justice of Andhra and Gujarat High Courts and the former governor of Andhra Pradesh, and in fact, in the judgement of the Nampally civil court, the judge who gave the verdict, even took note of this, remarking, “she hails from a good family”. Obul Reddy, the defendant added, had a considerable set of “followers and disciples” in the courts and will only make it difficult for the defendants to expect a fair trial and judgment.

Throughout our conversation, the defendants request that no information be published about where they work or even their job profiles. “I know so many people here (in the campus where we meet) but I hardly meet anyone now because they will ask about the case. At this point, we don’t know what to say to them,” says one of the defendants. When asked if they feel any regret, the answer is immediate. “Never. We did what was right.”

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

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In a blow to both the Gujarat and Modi governments, Sunil Jadav, Dalit author and journalist, on Friday, May 26 returned his ‘Mahatma Phule Shreshta Dalit Patrakar Award’ to the Gujarat government, protesting incidents of atrocities on Dalits in the state.

Jadav joined a rally — organised by the Rajkot unit of Dalit organisations — to the office of District Collector Vikrant Pandey. He later returned the award, presented to him in 2011, and also the citation and a cheque worth Rs 25,000, which he had received as part of the award, to the district collector.

In a letter addressed to the CM, Jadav (43) said: “The central and the state governments have failed to protect Dalits. I am extremely pained by the Una atrocities… and the recent killings of and atrocities on Dalits in Saharanpur and Shabbirpur. The Gujarat government has failed protect Dalits after the Una incident and as a result incidents of atrocities on Dalits are going up.”

In 2015 and 2016, writers and filmmakers across the countries had returned National Awards as a stinging protest against the rising intolerance on the streets, the impunity to mo violence as symbolised in the lynching to death of Mohammad Akhlaq in September 2015. Over 40 authors starting with Nayantara Sahgal and 24 film makers had not just returned awards but also made stinging statements against the proto-fascist government.

 The Union government had to accept that that nearly 40 writers returned their awards during the Award Wapsi campaign in 2015. However, this number pertains to only those who had been awarded by the Sahitya Akademi. The overall count is likely to be much higher. Minister of Culture Mahesh Sharma has told the Lok Sabha that these writers returned their awards claiming "that there was an attack on their freedom of expression and the Akademi kept silent on the issue".

Filmmakers Kundan Shah and Saeed Mirza as well as author Arundhati Roy were among two dozen artists who returned their national awards on Thursday, joining a snowballing anti-intolerance campaign with members of the intelligentsia accusing the BJP-led government of stoking religious tensions and muzzling criticism.

The development came against the backdrop of a swirling debate over rising intolerance in the country after the mob lynching of a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh over cow-killing rumours and violent attacks on rationalists.

Roy, who won the Booker for “The God of Small Things”, announced in a column for the Indian Express that she was returning her 1989 National Award for Best Screenplay for the film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones”, saying she was proud to be part of what artists and intellectuals had started.

“I am very pleased to have found a National Award that I can return, because it allows me to be a part of a political movement by writers, filmmakers and academics who have risen up against ideological viciousness and an assault on our collective IQ that will tear us apart and bury us deep if we do not stand up to it,” she wrote.
 

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I am one of the fortunate PhD scholars lucky enough to study in JNU. I am a Dalit woman.  My mother is my family’s main breadwinner and my father struggles as a daily wager. I have two siblings who are younger than me. My mother is a low paid private school teacher today because of the education, which her single mother provided to her.

My maternal grandmother who became a widow at a young age, didn’t sit inside the house after her husband passed away, she works as a sanitation worker even today, a profession that is considered a taboo by her community people. It is the hard work of these two women that has helped me reach this position.

Because of my family situation my school education was scattered all over Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. I never studied in one school for more than two years. So one can understand how many types of schools and people I have experienced with. I started my schooling in a convent in Pondicherry. Then I went to three matriculation schools before I completed my 6^th standard; after that because of my family’s economic condition I was put in Government and aided schools from class 7 till the completion of class 12.

Irrespective of changing schools every alternate year I was good at my studies, I was always encouraged and motivated by my friends and by my teachers. I was always fortunate when it came to teachers: teachers stood by me in all my obstacles throughout my education wherever I went and JNU has been no exception to this.

I stood first throughout my schooling but my board exam marks were not sufficient for an engineering or medical seat. Since I liked English Literature and my marks in that subject were very high, I applied for a BA in English in Salem’s famous Sarada College for Women. When the results came, my parents looked for my name first in the SC list, but when they couldn’t find my name there, they thought I didn’t get a seat. But then my mother thought to look for it in the open category list, and found it at rank three there. My parents were very happy and I was admitted.  

During my graduation I stood first in curricular and co-curricular activities in the final year of my graduation and because of my achievements I was made the Secretary of the students union in the college. (I don’t think that an SC had ever been selected as a secretary of that college before me). Finally I graduated with a First rank in BA English Literature and with the honor of being the Best Outgoing Student of the year 2013.

My mother’s education made us aware of the facilities in Central Universities and helped her three children write entrance exams for Central universities. Admission to JNU had a huge impact on my life, and my family’s living conditions. Her first daughter (me) wrote the JNU entrance for MA in Linguistics and was admitted into JNU with the help of woman’s deprivation points, (a unique feature of JNU’s now scrapped admission policy) in the SC quota.

During my Masters in Linguistics at JNU, I was exposed to Chomsky’s generative linguistics, not usually taught in most other Indian universities.  I was always keen to apply whatever I learned from the courses taught to my mother tongue, Tamil, and my second language, Malayalam. As I progressed through my MA course work, my curiosity about these two languages led me to discover more about Dravidian languages and Linguistic theories.  The turning point in my career as a linguist was a research paper on Tamil that I wrote in a Chomskyan syntax course in the third semester of my Master’s degree, a topic that has grown into my PhD work.

When I appeared for the JNU MPhil/PhD entrance examination, with a first class degree in MA Linguistics from JNU, there was no seat cut; this Dalit woman, raised by the sweat and blood of her grandmother and mother, used her knowledge she got in her MA from JNU and made it through a highly competitive selection to the MPhil/PhD programme. She secured the first rank in the open category, and also a JRF. (Although the irregular disbursal of the JRF by JNU/UGC causes frequent tension, as I need the money to meet not only my own expenses but also the needs of my younger siblings’ education.  I am frequently forced to borrow money from friends and acquaintances, leaving me in debt for most of the year.)

This achievement by a student coming from a government school and from a deprived background from down south of this country is a matter of pride not just to me, my family and my community but also a moment of pride for my institution, imagined by the people of this country to be an inclusive University. Today I am a proud independent woman who shoulders the burden once carried by her mother and her aging grandmother. JNU and other such public institutions have played a huge role in making me.

Unfortunately the new admission policy in JNU has dictated that there will be zero admissions in my Centre, as in many others in JNU, for this academic year. This move, using the pretext of some UGC regulations, actually shuts the doors of social mobility for various students from deprived communities like me. Our success is not just an individual’s achievement but a brighter hope for our family and community. And given the fact that many PhD students in JNU are women, these new regulations will have a great impact on woman’s higher education in our country.

If such a seat cut was implemented in my time, what would have I done with my MA degree in linguistics? Given the high cost of education in other universities, I would have probably gone back to my hometown. Since I am a woman, society would have pressurized my parents about my marriage and my dream to be the first PhD in my family would have been buried.  Is this what we want the woman in this nation to do? Bury their dreams of a better life?

Rajamathangi S is a PhD Scholar at Center for Linguistics, JNU

This article was first published on  Kafila.
 

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