Is there no limit to the pettiness and vindictiveness that University administrations and their masters in the Modi regime’s MHRD (Ministry for Human Resources Development) can display towards young scholars and political activists?

 
Two days ago, on April 18, Chintu Kumari, an AISA activist and former General Secretary of the JNUSU (Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union), got a call from the JNU Administration that her MPhil degree and mark sheet had been “blocked” because of her participation in the February 9 event protesting Afzal Guru’s execution. Chintu is among those who received a show-cause notice from the Administration, but was not among the 8 students who had been ‘debarred from academic activities’ for some weeks.  
 
A few days ago, Shweta Raj, JNUSU Convenor of the School of Languages, submitted her fellowship form – to be told by the JNU Finance Branch that it has orders not to clear the fellowships of the ‘debarred’ students.
 
Soon after, the current JNUSU General Secretary Rama Naga and former JNUSU President Ashutosh Kumar also found that their fellowships are not being cleared by the JNU Finance Branch, even though these students are no longer ‘debarred’.
 
These students overcome huge social and economic hurdles and handicaps to make it to University, and in Universities like JNU and HCU (Hyderabad Central University), they are able to thrive and emerge as political leaders. It is nothing short of criminal that the Modi Government and its pliant Administrations choose to punish these students for their political activism.    
 
The Government wants us to see these students as one-dimensional ‘anti-nationals’. That’s good enough reason to look a little closer, and see who these students are, and what they get from JNU and what they bring to academics and politics that makes the Government want to end their education and their activism.   
 
Chintu’s father is a whole-time activist of the CPI(ML) in the Bhojpur region of Bihar; her mother sells bangles to sustain the family. Her father has had to live in hiding since 1996, since he is a target for the Ranveer Sena that massacred entire Dalit villages in Bhojpur in the 1990s.

At a recent protest in JNU, Chintu spoke with feeling about the serial killings of CPI(ML) activists in Bihar – in the past month itself, Comrades Mahesh Ram, Rampravesh Ram, and Garo Paswan who had been leading struggles of Dalit villagers for land that is rightfully theirs, were killed in Begusarai by feudal elements.  
 
Chintu was schooled in Delhi in the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya. She did her BA from IP College in DU, and then joined JNU for her MA and MPhil in Political Science. Her brother studies in Bhojpur; to get a sense of the struggles that students like him have had to wage (against mass expulsions and arson attacks) to get an education, do read Javed Iqbal’s piece, ‘JNU, HCU, and Once Upon A Time in Bhojpur.

Between Bhagat Singh martyrdom day on March 23 and Ambedkar Jayanti on 14 April this year, Chintu, Ashutosh, Anant, Rama and other AISA activists have campaigned intensively in villages and towns of India, as part of the ‘Utho Mere Desh’ (Arise My Country) campaign. Chintu spent much of the March-April month in Bhojpur, addressing street corner meetings, and appealing to people to come forward for a new India of Bhagat Singh’s and Ambedkar’s dreams (Naye Bharat Ke Vaste, Bhagat Singh-Ambedkar ke Raste). 
 
Last year, as JNUSU General Secretary, Chintu had visited Bhojpur to meet the young Dalit girls and women who had been gangraped in Kurmuri village by a former Ranveer Sena commander.

 
Rama Naga, the JNUSU GS, is the first graduate from his village. This is how the Telegraph described him in February, “Naga is a Dalit from Boipariguda in Odisha's Koraput district. His father sells bangles on his bicycle and his mother is a day labourer. …A graduate from Vikram Dev College in Odisha's Jeypore, Naga is shy except when he is on the dance floor. In Jeypore, he gave tuitions to fund his studies….His filmy dances during hostel and varsity cultural events drew crowds on the JNU campus. He's fondly called "Remo" after actor Vikram's character in the 2005 Tamil film Anniyan, which was dubbed in Hindi as Aparichit…. He has earned scholarships ever since he joined JNU.”

His MPhil is a critical study of the movements in his home state against land grab by the Baliapal missile testing range and the POCSO Steel Plant (POCSO has recently admitted defeat and withdrawn plans for the plant). For a young scholar and activist entirely dependent on fellowships, the freezing of his fellowship is a deliberate act of violence. Rama has posted on Facebook about how he, Shweta and Ashutosh are finding it difficult even to pay their mess bills.        
 
Ashutosh is the son of a rail worker in Barh in Bihar. Shweta, from Mughalsarai in UP, in addition to economic hardships, has the usual struggles most young women face, persuading their families to support her choice to pursue a PhD in Hindi literature and Left activism. JNU knows the clear young voices of Ashutosh and Shweta well – from the many struggles in which they have raised slogans and given powerful, inspiring speeches.       
 
The right-wing campaign derides JNU for wasting public subsidies. The likes of Anupam Kher jeer at JNU students asking them why they’re wasting their time doing PhDs instead of earning a living and supporting their poverty-stricken families. BJP MP Chandan Mitra, in a piece urging the Government to jump at any excuse to “shut down JNU” which he dubbed as “a factory that produces only spongers and malcontents.”

Meanwhile, the UGC is slashing funds and fellowships, while the PM himself is seeking to invite foreign universities to set up shop in India.    
 
Students like Rohith or Chintu, Rama, Ashutosh, Shweta and so many others, pose a threat to our rulers, because they refuse to look at education as a commodity; refuse to lose sight of the connections between science, social science, the humanities and society. They refuse to confine their reading and thinking to what can get them marks in exams – they refuse to seal off the classroom from the campus, the street or the slum. ‘Educate’, for them as for Ambedkar, goes hand in hand with ‘organise and agitate’. They know full well that when Bhagat Singh wrote a letter to youth, he didn’t ask them how much they would be earning, he asked them to organise study circles, distribute leaflets, build a revolutionary party, for “for the consummation of our ideal, i.e., social reconstruction on new, i.e., Marxist, basis.” And that’s why they know that Kher, Mitra and Co., would have jeered at Bhagat Singh and his comrades, too, as ‘spongers and malcontents.’ What, after all, is a ‘malcontent’? Neither Bhagat Singh nor Ambedkar preached being ‘content’ with a society ridden with inequality and oppression.

The BJP feels threatened when they see students from rural Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, UP express empathy for the people of Kashmir; organise workers on their campuses; and subject the Government to scrutiny. Above all, the BJP feels deeply threatened when young people refuse to accept the RSS attempts to define ‘nationalism’ in terms of Beef or the saffron-waving Bharat Mata baying for blood-and-bullets; and when students instead define patriotism as a concern for citizens’ rights, for justice, for democracy.  

Modi came to power boasting of support from the young. Now, wherever he goes, he seems as afraid of the young as the fairy tale Emperor was of the child who saw that he wore no clothes. Today’s students are the most vocal in piercing the balloon of ‘Acche Din’, in saying to him, in the words of Habib Jalib:
 
“Phool shaakhon pe khilne lagey” tum kaho,
“Jaam rindon ko milne lagey” tum kaho,
“Chaak seenon kay silne lagey” tum kaho,
Iss khule jhooth ko,
Zehn ki loot ko,
Main nahin maanta,
Main nahin jaanta.   
 
“Flowers are budding on branches”, that’s what you say,
“Every cup overflows”, that’s what you say,
“Wounds are healing themselves”, that’s what you say,
These bare-faces lies,
this insult to the intelligence,
I refuse to acknowledge,
I refuse to accept
 
(Translation courtesy Sana Saleem)

The Government and the University Administrations should have learnt their lesson by now – that every attempt to slap sedition charges, withhold fellowships and block MPhil degrees only adds fuel to a student movement that is growing in determination, and that is a refreshing vent of fresh air for a country suffocated by authoritarianism, betrayed promises and bigotry.       
 

The post A Vengeful State: JNU Administration Selectively Witholds Student Fellowships appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Does the Modi Government Want Mass Suicides of Students in Campuses Across the Country, angrily demand Research Scholars?

The Modi Government is squeezing fellowship amounts promised under several government schemes to research scholars all over the country. First the differently abled and religious minorities, now even SC and ST research scholars are being denied their fellowship amounts.

The Modi-led government, is pursuing capricious policies and budgetary cuts in higher education that has rendered thousands of Indian university students distraught and tense over the past few months, with a staggered and irrational release of their fellowship and scholarship amounts, leaving universities across the country in a state of angry ferment.
 
Over 20,000 research scholars all over the country have been affected by this tardy and insensitive functioning by the Central government. “Many of us have run into personal debts of Rs 50-60,000,” a research scholar told this writer. “We are helpless, we cannot ask our families and what is worse we are not being able to concentrate on the research,” he added.
 
Research scholars in higher education, who have obtained scholarships under different schemes, have been spending energies in getting scholarship amounts disbursed rather than concentrating on their studies since July last year (2015).

Scholars Among the Differently Abled Denied Fellowship Amounts for Eight Months

 
Among the worst sufferers for a grueling eight month period were research fellows who had obtained the Rajiv Gandhi National fellowship for the Disabled. They did not receive any fellowship amount since June July 2015 and only recently six months worth of money has been disbursed, after a staggering eight month gap. A quick look at the Forum of Scholars (UGC Fellowships Forum ) on the Facebook Page shows the deep anguish that students across the country are going through. Some of these students whom Sabrangindia has made inquiries about include M. D. Hasanujgaman, Ashok Jack and  Arul Selvam among several others. 

Presently, the worst sufferers are minority, Dalit and Adivasi students who get scholarships from the Social Welfare and Minority Ministries apart from the UGC.Minority Students across the country who have been awarded the MANA fellowship (Maulana Azad National Fellowship for Minorities) have been denied their amounts for as many as five-to six months and on occasion extending to a year. Sabrangindia has spoken to several of them including Mir Qadri.

Here is what Mir Qadri wrote 55 minutes ago on the Facebook page of the Forum, “All MANF scholars I have planned to go to Minority Cell Department of the Government Telangana to meet the Chairman with our problem of Fellowship amounts not being released.” Sabrangindia spoke to Mir Qadri, “ I am a student of the Maulana Azad University Hyderabad and have not received my fellowship amount for five months. In my knowledge there are at least 1015 students of the same university who have not received their fellowship appoints some for over a year. How are research scholars supposed to even function?” Qadri demanded.
 
Abu Saleh, a research scholar from the University of Hyderabad and part of the Occupy UGC Campaign launched last year in October, says “For the last 18 months, fellowships for students has become a huge issue in the country. There have been clear-cut efforts to stop fellowships plans as like 'UGC Non Net'. Even though there was a hike in amount to some of the scholarships by the end of 2014, the total number has been cut down in many schemes.”
 
Sabrangindia’s investigations across the country have found that the disbursement of all scholarship and fellowship amounts in almost all the schemes of the government are extremely irregular and not functioning properly. Besides, there has been an almost ad hoc cutting and trimming of scholarship entitlements and amounts.
 
At least a dozen students from all over the country, including the Differently Abled, Dalit and Adivasi students were contacted by Sabrangindia. Students who are differently abled are being denied their legitimate fellowship amounts and moreover face a humiliation when they try and contact the authorities.

The last Central Education Budget already saw a jaw dropping budgetary cut of 17%! In the revised estimates for 2014-15, while school education allocation was cut by around Rs. 80,000 crore, that of higher education was slashed by Rs. 4,000 crore. In June 2014, out of 7 lakh candidates who appeared for the NET examinations, a total of around 25000 qualified.  An analysis prepared by the University of Hyderabad Teachers Association states that  clearly, this decision of the UGC is going to leave more than 96% of our students (who were anyway receiving only a meager amount of Rs. 5000 for MPhil and Rs. 8000 for PhD) with no scholarship support to pursue their education.

MPhil and PhD students are research workers, which also involves travel expenses to field sites, libraries etc, purchasing of books and other materials, arranging for accommodation and food where there are no free hostels and messes and so on. Even access to many online journals and articles are privileged and one has to pay if one is outside the privileged circles. Some central fellowship grants are, however, Rs 25,000 per month.

This was the plea made by a differently abled student to Sabrangindia, “Our concerns are being neglected. We have failed to contact the responsible authorities and to get the fellowship. The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, UGC and Canara bank are telling us that there are no funds at all for our fellowship!
 
They are saying different things at different times. They always keep referring to others and give us different phone numbers and when we call them, they again keep refer to others. But still there is no proper reply. Some of them say we will get the fellowship in coming months. Some say there are no funds so they don’t know anything. Some say we (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment) have already given fund to UGC, but contradictorily the UGC says the ministry has not sent any money!
 
Canara bank says the ministry (of finance) has not sent us funds. Again some tell us either to wait indefinitely or to ask the Finance ministry ourselves to release the funds for our fellowship. When we mail and call, most of the respective offices and their staff refuse to even give us a coherent reply, some even come back and say why we are bothering them.
 
We are in a state of utter darkness. We don’t know when and why we are not getting the fellowship. We do not know what we should do to get the fellowship. Moreover, there is no proper accountability to submit our grievances and inquire about the indefinite delay and non-payment of the fellowship. We are facing huge hardships and severe economic problems due to the non-payment of the fellowship.”  

Researchers from the Minority similarly Strapped 

The condition of the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) is another cause for serious concern. In the name of changing the system to a direct bank transfer, even this fellowship amount is being delayed over the last year. The last time the fellowship was given to some students was in October/November 2015.  A few days back after many mails, tweets, and phone calls, they have released one or two months worth of money for a few batches while several are still pending. Research students of MANF 2010-11 batch are still waiting for their June-July fellowship.
 
Last year after huge efforts by the students (RGNF) for SC/STs, scholarships are functioning slightly better but there are various other difficulties such as transferring fellowships from one institution to another. Activation of fellowships for new batches takes months while bad responses and insufficient communication is another problem. UGC, Ministries and Canara Bank always play a blame game and it is the students who suffer.
 
Prestigious institutions of higher education are also clearly indicating to students the complete cancellation of scholarships. This document that the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) has sent to the new students enrolling in the MPhil and PhD programme from this year is self-explanatory. More than 150 students join TISS for M.Phil and PhD every year and they have been clearly told, “no scholarships!” This will certainly impact the profile of the students who will get in.
 
The circular clearly says that “as per directives of the Central Government of India, Centrally Funded Universties are not entitled for the Non Net fellowships. In view of this there will be no Not Net Fellowship support provided to the scholars from this year.” Only UGC and RGNF scholarships will be available.
 
Over three dozen research fellows whom Sabrangindia spoke to have collectively made this plea. These include Rukmini Dutta, Sreekumar Bishwas, Chiranjib Sarkar, Abhijit Sarkar, Girish Dahiya. Their statement follows:

“The debates regarding UGC Non Net Fellowship and UGC’s messing this up is well known. After several protests throughout the country, the HRD Ministry did set up a committee. The report of the committee was supposed to come in December but researchers are still waiting for the same. The ‘unqualified’ humbug minister seems to be underperformer too. Further, many ongoing fellowship schemes are also in great danger since many of them are being mismanaged in the last two years. The late disbursement system and several months without any fellowships are plaguing the students.
 
Fellowship schemes like MANF, RGNF and so on are dysfunctional for a long time. Last year some students did visit to UGC and other concerned ministries and were promised that the schemes will run as per law thenceforth, but unfortunately it did not happen. As of now thousand scholars of the country have not received their fellowship for many months. For example the scholars under the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) scheme for minority students are without fellowship from last October – November. Other schemes like RGNF SC, RGNF ST, RGNF OBC and so on are also running late. Most unfortunately fellowship for disabled students has not been released since last July. In these circumstances these research scholars are in great distress.
 
This repeated late disbursement of fellowships affect thousands of research scholars of the country. Most of the scholars solely depend on fellowship for their needs. Thus, if the fellowship amount is not credited on time, it becomes very difficult to sustain. Researchers literally witness times when they do not have money to support ourselves. Students feel really dejected that they have been pushed down to the level of beggars who have to petition every month for what rightfully deserve as legal entitlements as research scholars. Energy and time are lost much in this process which can otherwise be utilized for fruitful research. Researchers are not even able to concentrate on research, as are constantly worried about the lack of money for basic needs.
Now, whom to blame for all this?
 
Is the assigned Canara Bank and the system or the bureaucracy of UGC responsible? Are the ministries responsible or the entire Govt. itself? Students call and beg to Canara Bank, UGC and Ministries almost every day for the pending money they deserve and when the power leaves them baffled with a mutual blame game, they do not know what to do to get the problem resolved. Researchers wait almost endlessly every month but the hostel authorities will not wait for the mess fees to be remitted; the university authorities will not wait for the tuition fees to be paid; the labs cannot wait for the essential chemicals, tools and instruments to be used from time to time.
 
This might sound little emotional but it’s the ground reality of the researchers in India. Sometime many wonder and regret of the choice of research over other promising careers which would have at least not left them in a situation like this. Please imagine when the employees don’t get salary during the first week of the month.Students appeal not punish them more for choosing to face the challenges of a career in research to contribute to the academic development of the country.Here, it is to be noted that one of the significant reasons mentioned by Rohith Vemula in the tract going around as his 'suicide note' for his fatal decision was monetary problems. His pending fellowship was finally disbursed after his death. We would like to ask whether the Ministries, the UGC and the other powers that be whether they want mass suicides to occur across educational campuses of the country.

Thus, we request the concerned authorities at UGC, at various ministries, and power holders at the Govt. to look into the pathetic situation and do the needful at the earliest to resolve the late disbursement of our fellowships. Please act immediately to solve our problem; please give us our monthly fellowship at least within the first week of every month; please let us do our work peacefully and properly.”
 
Sabrangindia has been since last November consistently following up the Modi government’s failures in the area of higher education. The almost deliberate nonpayment of fellowship amount to a few or several thousand research fellows all over the country appears to be a calculated fall out of policies followed at the highest level.
 

The post Universities in a Ferment as Modi Government Slashes Scholarships appeared first on SabrangIndia.