Bollywood continues to remain divided over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). While actors like Anupam Kher and Paresh Rawal have supported PM Modi’s decision to implement the CAA, many others have come out in support of the students who suffered police brutalities at the Jamia Millia Islamia University (JMIU) and the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

They have now written a letter appealing the Uttar Pradesh administration to take cognizance of the situation in the state. In their appeal, noted actors Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Konkona Sen, Aparna Sen, Alankrita Shrivastava, Kubbra Sait, Mallika Dua, Zeeshan Ayyub and Swara Bhaskar reads, “Uttar Pradesh is very dear to us. Some of us have our roots in the state and most of us have worked in UP for our projects. What is most important is that whenever films in India are talked out, the heritage of UP has always shined bright.”

Regarding the CAA protests in the state, they said, “The CAA has given rise to a lot of contesting views. However, keeping individual opinions aside, what is fundamental is that the Constitution of India allows each person to peacefully protest and it is the duty of the government to stay within law and support the protests, conduct fair inquiries and it is only the right of the judiciary to decide right from wrong and penalize the guilty.”

They further added, “We feel that the government has shelved these principles, the government has used its brute force to snatch away our right to live, to keep forth our views, our right to dissent, etc. and the brought matters in the state of UP at a dangerous turn.”

Condemning the deaths that have taken place in the state in the wake of the protests and demanding justice for the victims they said, “We wish to highlight a few matters that have come to light from the state – the number of deaths due to police firing, police excesses, targeting a particular community, torturing of minorities, and the abuse of freedom and communal speeches of leaders belonging to the ruling party.”

They also said that according to the ‘godi’ media that is in favour of the ruling party, 18 deaths have taken place in the state, most of them due to police firing. There have to be some protocol of dealing with protestors they said and claimed that none of those protocols have been followed.

Their letter also mentioned that according to media reports, there have been mass arrests and the police is using sheer force for the crackdown on protestors, for which disturbing video evidence is available. They said there could be no justification for the barbaric torture of unarmed innocents, all for exercising their right to protest.

They also condemned CM Yogi’s statements in their letter saying, “The CM says that the breach of law and order will be avenged. Nobody denies that it is the government’s responsibility to maintain order in the state, but it is unbecoming of the authorities to give such inciting orders.”

They also said that the shutting down of the internet was another tragic example of trampling upon the fundamental rights of citizens, putting everyone at an inconvenience.

Speaking about the damage to property they said, “We collectively condemn the damage to public property. We maintain that if someone is found to be guilty, a fair trial must be instituted against them. But we unequivocally support peaceful protests which are an integral part of democracy and we feel are being curbed in Uttar Pradesh.”

In their concluding statement they said, “We appeal the courts in India to take suo moto cognizance of the happenings in UP and urge them to conduct a fair trial into the loss of lives and damage to property. As concerned citizens of the country, we follow the letter and spirit of the Constitution and pledge to adopt the Gandhian method of non-violence to resist such oppression.”

Related:

‘Zee TV misleads people’, journalist resigns over channel’s coverage of Jamia protest
Celebs join anti-CAA chorus, condemn police brutality against students
Bollywood’s clarion call against the CAA and police brutality on students
Bollywood’s Conscience Speak: Celebs against anti- CAA violence at Jamia, AMU

The post Bollywood appeals against police excesses in UP appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post MP KK Ragesh presents shocking figures about public funded universities of India, in Parliament appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Such is the nature of fascism. It revels in a complete loss of reference, and in the process imposes a compulsory solidarity on those choosing to be on the wrong side of history. We bore our burdens with our allies who were forged out of a coincidence of struggles. Desperation killed nuance, because our immediate contexts were continually rife with the threats of injury. Some of us were maimed, some punished, some frightened and some silenced. But, all of us – each one of us – have been listed out in some registry somewhere for charges we do not know, for crimes we haven’t been tried for, for hearings that never will happen, for disobediences we were compelled into and for a nation which outlaws all difference. We are forever in trial, a Kafkaesque one, which is in our wait for a verdict that will never come.

And while we sit huddled together outside the great structures that promise the ‘due process’ of law, we will have squabbled each other into a great many executions. The most tragic of those deaths will have been of the idea of justice. The courtroom will have become the morgue, as it replaces the memory of a Surekha Bhotmange and a Bhanwari Devi with that of a Bilkis or an Afzal or a Junaid. But, there is an other collateral that will come to haunt us through history. And that will be the burden of our differences. We will have been reduced to identicality, by the weight of those structures that consigned us to a trial in the first place.

Institutions and Historical Privilege
The university is no exception to those structures, though it peddles itself as one. Histories of injustice are internal to the functioning of any ‘corporation’, be it the nation or the educational institution. There is no manual of ‘correctness’ that grades our resistance to it, while ironically our participation within those histories – of behaviour in classrooms or interviews or parties – are forever the object of graded violence. The charge of democracy is about a relentless working at these spaces, to make visible the outsides of freedom that gird the insides of an institution. It is perhaps about creating with one’s voices and tears the fear of an em-bodied imagination that the powerful might be forced to live by. But, where does that imagination receive body from? Are policy-instruments, regulatory guidelines, elected bodies, fair trials, considered verdicts and deterrence norms – in short, ‘due process’ – enough to ensure justice? Perhaps, not alone – as these times have repeatedly proven. Perhaps, we need to create networks of constant vigilance over these ‘processes’ to prevent those minor lapses and major elisions that compound history. What then are these networks of vigilance – social media vanguardism, third-party confidantism or more?

In all the mayhem that ‘The List’ of celebrity ‘sexual offenders’ has generated on social media, we stand the risk – by the very writing of our most intimate dissensions – of being clubbed into one camp or the other. We write in fear of being boxed into binaries, much like lists are prone to do in their unquestionable preference for neat categories. The savarna left-liberal versus the Dalit vanguard, the ‘due process’ feminist versus the public trial feminist, the ‘established’ women’s rights activist versus the younger ‘inexperienced’ social media crusader, the legal constitutionalist versus the instant justice-seeker, the loyal rape-apologists of Brahmin predator-friends versus the third-party witnesses to lived sexual violence, the abettor-beneficiaries of institutionalised patriarchal privilege versus the self-proclaimed moral conscience-bearers. And this is where we lose sight of the structures that not only empower us into positions of relative privilege, but into networks of complicity with powerlessness.

We speak here not to accuse or excuse, but to evolve a critique of our own convictions and to test them against a culture of impunity that indeed installs male privilege as the fulcrum of all institutional spaces. We write to say that – yes, we are disarmed by the naming of some of our closest associates beside those who we know are hardened assaulters, but we do not wish to bail out any on the force of our recommendations or testimonials. We also do not want to dare any of our male colleagues – savarna or Dalit – to proclaim their innocence through ‘little’ social media acts of moral self-righteousness, nor do we want the feminist in us to not face up to the inefficacy of institutional infrastructures of redressal. It is true that ‘due processes’ have failed time and again to ensure a climate of ‘bekhauf azaadi’ for the women of those very institutions that have taught them the value of it, in slogans and struggles and classroom lectures. But, must the answer therefore lie in informal archives of secret charges that only fly in the face of our collective angers, or must they translate into movements for stronger and better-represented punitive mechanisms to hold those powerful men accountable for their acts? At a time when Vice-Chancellors and university administrations are trying their best to destabilise mechanisms of sexual justice – by subjecting women students who demand the right to dignity to either police batons or puppet committees – does an extra-juridical championing of justice help our cause?

As the list swells into a public databank that testifies to the magnitude of sexual violence on ‘safe’ campuses, one wonders why most of these names belong to institutions where the recourse to ‘due process’ has been eminently available and possible. It follows, as many have argued, that such processes often turn out to be biased and do not inspire confidence in the fairness of proceedings or the certainty of punishment for the accused-but-powerful. Indeed, this is the historical-structural index of male privilege that institutional procedures are susceptible to. But, problematically enough, doesn’t such a catalogue then restrict the struggle against gender injustice to a certain enlightened minority of victims – while at the same time ignoring the role that hard-earned structural mechanisms have played in sensitising these women to their sexual rights? Does the ethics of procedure – for all the vitriol that has already been directed against its effectiveness – really prove all that redundant in working towards a ‘consciousness’ of violence?

Consciousness: Too Little and Too Less?
This of course explains why almost all of the academic ‘offenders’ on Raya Sarkar’s list appear to belong to the better-known elite metropolitan institutions/universities. But, would that also push us a step further to ask why women students from non-elite lesser-known/unknown provincial institutions (or, mofussil spaces) cannot muster courage enough to even participate in such anonymous social media campaigns? Why don’t routine offenders from BHU or a Patna University or a Magadh University – or any of the new central or state universities, for that matter! – feature on the dreaded list? How are the invisible laboratories of Hindutva invasion somehow immune to our registers of sexual crime? Does it mean that these spaces are relatively freer of gendered violence, or that there are no ‘due processes’ to be sought? The answer currently rests in the realm of the unsaid.

And so, while there are everyday instances of assault by not just Brahmin/ Bhumihar/ Rajput/ Yadav/ Kurmi/ Koeri/ Dosadh/…male teachers (and yes, by actively patriarchal female teachers too!), but also by Deans of Students’ Welfare and Proctors who head student councils or enquiry committees, there is none to bring them to book. Or, even to organise the survivors – because, obviously, they don’t make news enough. Does anybody care about the failure of ‘due process’ in these spaces (or about the puppet bodies manned by assaulter administrative heads, in paper-abidance of UGC guidelines), or care to work within these non-celebrity spaces to bring in even a cognitive perception of gender-justice? Would those of us speaking out on ‘behalf’ of vulnerable women care to engage with structures that compound vulnerability on a daily basis, outside of our own privileged spaces? If first-person information were to be the only authentic sources, these are campuses where women are regularly slut-shamed for as much as not carrying a dupatta. But, that doesn’t count as sexual harassment, does it? Male invigilators during examination routines use their surveillance prerogative to ask women students to fold up salwaars to see what’s written on their legs, while boys are ordered to unbutton their shirts to prevent criminal propensities of cheating. DSWs clad in their inner garments traipse around during class hours, while university events offer unguarded opportunities for molesting women students and more. Women’s hostels are raided by male teachers at any time of the day and without notice, and students are unabashedly interrogated for their personal relationships or sexual choices. Those staying in the library till late at night are warned about their izzat, and made to swear discipline by their womanly sanskaar.

Understanding Harassment
But of course we would have no register of such incidents. Not only because there is no ‘due process’, but because these charades have become so normalised in their unchallenged repeatability that students don’t even recognise them as sexually violative. Let alone having the institutions or the language to register sexual abuse, what does one do when harassment is not even recognised as such? And this is where the struggle for gender-justice becomes an arduous process of not just numbering cases of complaint, but of counselling women students about the substantive meaning and import of harassment. And then, getting them to speak about their experiences, making them see the toxicity of it and deal with the trauma, find language, negotiate with peer-groups (often in the absence of ‘student councils’ and teacher associations!) and then demand ‘due process’. Naming offenders would have been easy vengeance in these cases, but never a guarantor of any attainable trace of justice. Because informal campaigns carry insurmountable risks to the complainant’s mental and physical health, and can only reproduce injustice within classrooms and hostels and homes. Incidentally, many early-career/‘contractual’ academics do also engage in this labour of sustained mobilisation, at the possible cost of their jobs and ‘reputation’. Procedure, therefore, is not something worthy of being abandoned for its failures – when having it could itself be a privilege. Protecting the integrity of such procedures is the difficult task of feminism; delegitimizing them through vigilante models and methods will cost a lot of us all the labour that we have been risking for years.

It is exactly here that Raya Sarkar’s list seems disingenuous – because in its deliberate non-naming of the specific instances of offence, it works with some definition of harassment that forecloses all possibilities of conversation. The demand for an exact citation of charges levelled against each entry on the list is, principally, not a demand for ‘evidence’ or the disclosure of identities of the complainants. We do recognise the crucial confidentiality-clause that harassment proceedings are ethically bound by, and hence the popular presumption of victim-blaming in such a context is misplaced here. What a generic nature of charges might have still done is contour the idea of sexual justice as moored in certain forms of hard-won consensus over our bodies, choices, desires and consent. Such a process of arriving at a consensus is consciously shunned in the current campaign – insofar as ‘sexual offence’ is made into a self-explanatory category lodged in mysterious archives of individual understanding. Earnest conversations around what constitutes ‘sexual abuse’ within unequal relationships of power are crucial in prying open the blindness induced by millennial histories of male privilege.

Victims over Survivors: The List to Come?
Raya hopes the list will equip future students with a crucial forecautioning, that would help them negotiate their professional relations with the listed professors – “I took this opportunity to create a list to warn students using firsthand accounts from survivors. The list is primarily for students to be wary of their professors, because in my opinion, knowing how college administrations function, harassers will continue to hold their positions of power.” (https://www.buzzfeed.com/karthikshankar/why-i-published-a-list-of-sexual-predators-in-academia?bffbdialogue&utm_term=.jmXLKrJ9k#.eq2kLZYVl) Even as this is meant to arm the student, it carries an implicit exhortative admonishment – one that drives the onus of keeping herself safe from potential victimage back upon her. An empowering of the student is thus already always undercut by a ‘burden of responsibility’ that she must carry – and one that dangerously opens an experimental trial-and-error space for the sexual offender through its refractory focus. This is the classic inversion of the template of gender justice that could again mobilize discourses of blame and shame against the complainant, without actually ensuring the harasser’s accountability. A list such as this is protectionist in its impulse, much like lists of dos and don’ts, drawn by keepers and custodians of women’s safety, slyly placing the burden of the experience of sexual harassment upon the student. This also proclaims and reserves the future as a site of perpetual victimhood, wherein students will always need warning lists and where the exercising of caution will be an act in itself, one that could easily be scuttled out of the economy of redressal and justice.

Further, within the list’s purported arming of future students there is no attempt made to ensure justice for the current survivor, beyond a public naming of her perpetrator. Its mode of anonymity and the deferred disclosure of details, foreclose in the present the possibility of redressal and accountability beyond the singular act and event of naming. The list might ‘save’ future students, but the question of justice for present survivors is collaterally deferred into the future. And yet, justice for the survivor is also about her own survival with dignity and her right of redressal in the present, one that must not be elided in an instrumentalizing of her experience for the continuing mission of aggregative listings in all futures to come. An iconizing of her role, an exaltation that props her as the poster-girl of vigilantism cannot ever be a compensatory overture for the materiality of her harassment and its lived horrors.

A Practice of Justice
Only acknowledging predatory sexual behaviour without attempting to bring it to justice, in effect, makes peace with the actual fact of male privilege in academia. In withholding details of the cases reported to the list, the materiality of the experience of sexual predatoriness is passed over, and its prevented outing cancels it as a measure and means to draft a strong policy against all that constitutes sexual harassment. In turn this could offer easy evasions to the actual predators on the list who could decry it for its lack of transparency even while hiding behind it. Since the details are missing for framing charges, the structural embeddedness of male privilege in academia would suffer no damage.

A serial list of offenders (without intending to provoke discussions around the terms of ‘harassment’) only serves to disguise the structural as individual acts of moral turpitude, and thus goes on to displace cultures of sexist prejudice onto nameable targets of knee-jerk resentment. Not only that, a timely debate on the material forms and expressions of harassment would have enabled the bulk of women within the university sector to measure their experiences against paradigms of justice that are most often imaginatively distant. In fact, all those survivors who have been cognitively damaged against a minimal apprehension of violence might emerge with the tools for an affective identification of victimhood, in the process. Isn’t the task of gender justice an equal commitment to the training of such radically other imaginations and forging of alliances beyond immediate equivalence(s) of identity? Don’t we realise that the vast majority of women with structural access to higher education will neither get a chance to enrol under the listed celebrity offenders nor in their respective elite institutions – and so, a list like this alienates more than it builds bridges? Raya’s claim to “save more victims from being harassed” is hinged on an indifference to those women who will neither know who these men are nor what harassment means. And unfortunately, that is where all numerical odds are stacked.

Where does this leave us and where do we go from here? It needs acknowledging that, despite the obvious problems of a list crowd-sourced by proxy and circulated without any actionable representation of cases, we are confronted by a moment of tremendous political urgency. It calls on us to earnestly take stock of institutions that we believed to be invested with our passionately transformative energies. We may allow this moment to spend its rage in social media circles and gather the dust of a damning distrust between those that sit on selection committees and those that queue up grade-sheets of ‘honour’. Or, we may try tapping into the realm of the cathartic, and unstitch the agonies that dress up everyday masculinity. The #metoo moment enabled an owning up to the trauma of experience – which may only be sustained and negotiated in a movement across college campuses for coalitions of collective trust. The transformative agenda lies precisely in this gap between the moment and the possible movement. And that gap is occupied by the painful ‘work’ of rallying for and building structures that recognise the sexual as the most intimately essential coordinate of justice.

This passage cannot be exhausted or even short-circuited by lists – strategically positioned between censure and defense, or neat self-separations between caste and gender privilege. We have to walk out into the sun, and see the university take shape outside its own insides, take the cause to schools along with the mandatory sex education classes, and alert young students to the nature of harassment and their rights therein. Debating and evolving guidelines continually through close understandings of cases that play out materially on our campuses, we have to ensure powerful mechanisms of redressal. We have to play the guards to the sealed GSCASH offices or those non-existent ones, bring back XV(D) in place of the weak and politically questionable ICC in colleges. It’s time now to reclaim our sensitization from the settled dust of collusion that we are all guilty of breathing into.
 

The post Sexual Harassment in the Academia – What the Hitlist Misses appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A fact finding report of reputed Indian scientists belonging to premier academic institutions has squarely blamed direct Central government interference in the autonomous functioning of the University of Hyderabad in exacerbating a conflict that has gone on uninterrupted from August 2015. “Direct interference by BJP’s central ministers and politicians in the running of the university” are one of the factors responsible. Senior scientists with various Indian institutions have conducted this detailed suo motu inquiry and released a report in early January.
 
Last year, in July 2016, Suvrat Raju, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences,  Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Bengaluru), Prajval Shastri, Indian Institute of Astrophysics (Bengaluru) and Ravinder Banyal, Indian Institute of Astrophysics (Bengaluru)visited the University and conducted a detailed fact-finding which has resulted in the report.
 
Other key scientists who are signatories include Dileep Jatkar, Harish-Chandra Research Institute (Allahabad), Srikanth Sastry, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (Bengaluru), N. Raghavendra, Harish-Chandra Research Institute (Allahabad), Rahul Siddharthan,  Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Chennai), Saikat Ghosh, Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur), Samriddhi Sankar Ray, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Bengaluru), Sandeep Krishna, National Centre for Biological Sciences,  Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Bengaluru), Alladi Sitaram, formerly with the Indian Statistical Institute (Bengaluru), Bhanu Das, Tokyo Institute of Technology, formerly with Indian Institute of Astrophysics (Bengaluru), Sugata Ray,  Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (Kolkata) and Sumathi Rao, Harish-Chandra Research Institute (Allahabad). This is the first firm public articulation from the scientific community on the gross injustices that led to Dalit research scholar, Rohith Vemula’s death.

Among the key findings are one, that “the events at the University started with a relatively minor conflict between the Ambedkar Students Association and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). But the Ministry of Human Resource Development escalated the matter by writing five letters, in quick succession, to the University.  This is part of a disturbing trend where the central government has chosen to make partisan interventions in University student politics. 
 
“Second, the report finds that although the University of Hyderabad is a diverse institution, discrimination on the campus continues and in one of its most pernicious forms is disguised as a concern for "merit." This is part of a larger problem: reservations are not just about quotas, and a meaningful implementation of the reservation policy should include steps to combat discrimination in its myriad forms, and address the educational needs of a diverse student body.”

There are some key Suggestions made in the detailed report that can be read here.

University Administration Responsible for Conflict Leading to Rohith’s Death
The report states that “the University administration must accept a large portion of the responsibility for the current conflict. The University of Hyderabad is a diverse institution and many students on campus hold sharply diverging ideologies. So it is especially important for the administration to be non-partisan in its conduct. The administration must also ensure that members of the University are free to express themselves and pursue their ideas, and it should act as a shield when external political forces attempt to suppress student groups on campus. The administration has repeatedly failed to uphold these principles, from the time of the conflict between the ASA and ABVP students in August 2015. ”

The report goes on to analyse that the university administration further escalated the situation that it failed to keep a non-partisan view on.

“The initial conflict was a relatively minor dispute that could have been re- solved within the University. However, the administration succumbed to external political pressure, from BJP politicians and the central government, and repeatedly took partisan steps against ASA activists, including passing an extraordinary order that banned a set of ASA students from “common places in groups.”

Appa Rao Negligent and Insensitive
“Prof. Appa Rao himself failed to appreciate the significance of Mr. Rohith Vemula distressed letter in December 2015. In March, the admin- istration was complicit, either through its tacit approval or at least through March 28, 2016 inaction, in police brutality against protesting students. Subsequently, the ad- ministration failed to defuse tensions on campus, and instead suspended two dissenting faculty members on flimsy grounds.

“The administration cannot justify its actions by pointing to some hot-headed actions by the dissenting students. Rather, this conflict casts light upon some significant systemic weaknesses, including the unwillingness of academics involved in administration to stand up for principles against pressure from those in power. These issues go beyond individuals. Nevertheless, as the first step in a healing process, we feel that it would help greatly if Prof. Appa Rao Podile were to voluntarily step down from his position as vice chancellor. As the head of the administration, he must accept responsibility for its multiple failures.

“Moreover, it is important for academics to keep in mind that administrative posts are ultimately about service to the community. They are presumably not an end in itself and involve significant personal sacrifice, since they prevent an academic from doing his or her own work. As such, while members of the academic community are sometimes willing to put aside their academic careers to take on administrative responsibilities, this only makes sense if they are able to contribute to the institution in a constructive manner.

Appa Rao Must Go
“After having visited the University, and spoken to its members on both sides of this conflict, we do not see how Prof. Appa Rao can possibly contribute positively to the University in the current polarized atmosphere. His very presence as vice chancellor has led to a sustained conflict that has embarrassed the University. It is clear that Prof. Appa Rao cannot be forced to resign, as he continues to have the support of the central government. However, if his intention is genuinely to contribute to the welfare of the University, it is clear to us that he cannot do so while remaining as vice chancellor.

Withdraw All Cases Against Protesting Students and Faculty
“It is exceedingly important for the University to take steps to withdraw all cases against the protesting students and faculty. As far as we can see, the only actionable event that happened on 22 March pertained to vandalism of property in the vice chancellor’s house. No one was hurt in this process. Moreover, many of the students and faculty who were arrested were clearly not involved in that event. There is no excuse for a continuing police investigation that constitutes constant harassment of these students and faculty. The students who vandalized the vice chancellor’s house can be identified, and counselled in internal University proceedings. 


“It is also important for the University to ensure that action is taken against the policemen who used excessive force on the protesters on March 22. The University should support the cases filed by students and faculty on this issue, and ensure that a strong message is sent, through the courts, that this kind of police misbehaviour will not be tolerated. The dissenting students and faculty have made several grave allegations. Some police officers allegedly even told them that their fundamental rights had been suspended. The University should push for an internal inquiry against these officers, and ensure that they are disciplined if these allegations are found to be true.

Violent Police Officers Must Be Punished
“The behaviour of the police, and particularly the fact that they linked the dissenting students to “supporters of Pakistan” and characterized them as “anti- Hindu” and “pro-Muslim” is a symptom of the communal rot that has infected elements of our law-enforcing agencies. As a society, it is important for us to weed out these tendencies and ensure a sensitive and secular police force.

Universities Must Remain Immune to Govt Pressure
“It is important, in the future, for the University to strongly resist undue pressure from the central government. As the Ministry of Human Resource Development has itself pointed out, it has “no role to play in day to day affairs” of the University. Therefore, intrusive letters from the MHRD should be met with a firm reminder of this fact, and a refusal to share personal information about students or faculty, beyond what is publicly available 


Institute an Anti-Discrimination Cell at HCU
“It is important for the University to have a more comprehensive anti-discrimination cell. We understand that the University has appointed an anti-discrimination officer, and this is consistent with the relevant UGC regulations. But a larger anti-discrimination cell — with representations from students, and various faculty and non-teaching staff, and also representation from outside the University 
— would be significantly more effective. This cell should have the power to investigate complaints of discrimination even against members of the administration and its members should be easily accessible to the University community. Moreover, incoming students should be familiarized with the role of this cell, and the procedure to contact it. 


“The issue of the suspension of faculty members leads to a broader issue of academic freedom in Indian Universities. Some, although not all, academic institutes in India have incorporated the civil service rules of the government of India into their contracts for academic staff members. As we described above, these rules are anachronistic. It is not clear that they are appropriate even for bureaucrats, and they are certainly inappropriate for University teachers. For instance, it is obvious that University teachers should be at the forefront of 
critical-debate in society, but the civil service rules technically prohibit them from criticizing the government. Often, University employees are unaware of these rules. Administrations also do not implement them strictly, except in times of conflict when the precise wording of the rules is suddenly wielded as a weapon against recalcitrant faculty members.

“It is important for the broader academic community in India to formulate a new and appropriate set of guidelines to govern academic employees. These guidelines should make ample allowance for academic freedom and the freedom of speech that is crucial on a University campus. Of course, this change will not be easy, but unless the academic community initiates this debate on service rules, the status quo will continue.

“The broader issues in this conflict pertain to the manner in which the reservation policy is being implemented. The University of Hyderabad, on paper, is an excellent example of a diverse institution that has successfully implemented the letter of the policies on reservation. However this, by itself, does not imply the end of discrimination. Over the past several years, multiple students from Dalit and other minority communities have committed suicide at the University. This points to a pervasive problem that cannot be solved with small administrative tweaks.

“In fact, one of the objectives of a public institution of higher learning such as the University of Hyderabad is to provide educational opportunities for marginalized sections of the society. This is a small step towards combating injustice. So the University must take greater efforts to ensure a healthy social fabric on campus. As some of the University’s own documents note, it is important to have sensitization programs for administrators, faculty members and students. As we mentioned above, it is also important to have meaningful complaint mechanisms against discriminatory behaviour. The University can also help to promote inclusiveness by explicitly supporting social programs that celebrate diversity and encourage the intermingling of students from different backgrounds.

Recommend Structural Changes in Curriculum
“Apart from this, we feel that structural changes in the curriculum may also be beneficial. In fact we are glad that at least some members of the administration indicated that the University has, itself, been pushed to think along these lines.

“One possibility is to redesign both the M.Sc. and the PhD curriculum to allow for greater flexibility for students who come in with different levels of preparation. For instance, the M.Sc. course could be formally extended to three years, instead of two years, with the first year consisting of foundational courses. It is important that these foundational courses be mandated for all students. This is necessary to avoid stigmatization and the creation of a parallel stream for students who are admitted through a quota. Moreover, students who are admitted through the so-called “general category” also have widely varying levels of preparation, and many of them may benefit from these courses. On the other hand, to cater to students who are better prepared, the course structure should allow for the possibility of “drop tests”, where students can demonstrate their preparation and skip the foundational courses. A similar structure can be introduced at the PhD level. It is, of course, true that these flexible structures will require greater resources in teaching and research. But it is necessary for society to make this investment to redress persistent injustice.

“In the absence of such systemic reforms, the reservation policy simply continues discrimination in a hidden form. These shortcomings are not the result of oversight. Rather, efforts at meaningful reform of the reservation policy are confronted by powerful conservative political forces at each step. It is this broader societal contradiction — between those who seek to redress injustice and build a more egalitarian society, and those who have a vested interest in the status quo — that lies at the heart of the conflict at the University of Hyderabad. ”
 
 

The post Appa Rao Must Go, HCU Admin Guilty of Conflict Leading to Rohith’s Death: Scientists appeared first on SabrangIndia.

For weeks and months, she has been the face of the protest and struggle. Be it Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala or Una, Gujarat Radhika Vemula was there, speaking out against the injsutice faced by first Rohith, who's 'institutional murder' was caused by a cruel administration represented in suspended Vice Chancellor Appa Rao Podille. Handpicked by the central government, this VC, accused of substandard academics, even plageurism, was given an 'award of excellence' by Narendra Modi (January 3).

Radhika had worked with the sewing machine, sewing clothes to fund her children's education. But she gave it up after Rohith's death as she toured across the country speaking in universities and garnering solidarity for her fight against caste discrimination at higher educational institutions. A year has elapsed since then and the family is back to struggling for livelihood. She now earns `350-500 a day.

"After Rohith died, we faced several hardships. Raja worked as a daily wager at Autonagar as my health wasn't good. I recovered in December and started tailoring," she said.The family now lives almost in an exile far from the city to avoid attention. "We were insulted by officials and members of the society . No one was willing to give us a house on rent," Radhika said.

On Tuesday, it will be exactly one year since she lost her son. "Unless the ideology of the Union government and the public mindset change, there will be a lot of mothers like me who will wail in vain," she said.

But Radhika has resolved to continue her fight for a `Rohith Act' to end casteism in universities. "Even if the Guntur district administration declares Rohith as a BC, I will not let it dampen our fight. Had the people from previous generations fought against discrimination, I would have had my Rohith by my side. That is why I am fighting for future generations and to make sure no other Dalit suffers due to discrimination,"

The post Unless the Ideology of the Modi Govt Changes, Mothers Like Me will Cry in Vain: Radhika Vemula appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post Undermining India’s institutions: How the Modi regime ran one red light after another appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“Even though from childhood I had been taught that the idolatry of the nation is almost better than reverence for God and humanity, I believe I have outgrown the teaching, and it is my conviction that my countrymen will truly gain their India by fighting against that education which teaches them that a country is greater than the ideal of humanity… Nationalism is a great menace. It is the particular thing which for years has been at the bottom of India’s troubles.”

These words were spoken by the poet whose song has been converted by a military band into the national anthem of India. Were Rabindranath Tagore to utter those words on a university campus in India today, he would be called “anti-national” and arrested for sedition.

I first encountered Tagore’s Lectures on nationalism in a political thought class at the University of Calcutta in the 1960s. We were the first generation born after independence. Brought up on string tales of patriotic heroism and sacrifice, we did not quite know how to deal with Tagore’s eloquent condemnation of modern nationalism. Later, in the course of my own research, I delved into the careers of many revolutionary nationalists. Needless to say, they rejected Tagore’s critique of their politics. But I was struck by the way in which virtually all of them recounted in their memories their deep immersion of Tagore’s poems and songs as a source of solace and inspiration during their darkest days underground or in prison. At that time, the best patriots had an immensely rich and subtle grasp of the culture of their country.

Image courtesy Tweenyjodd

Today, I also find it remarkable that my professors in the university — in the early decades after independence — should have required us to read Tagore’s passionate critique of the very idea of the nation. Were they challenging us to get underneath our comfortable patriotic common sense to seek new and nuanced rebuttals to Tagore’s arguments? If they were, they were in fact teaching us that neither reverence for the nation nor reverence for Tagore was the right approach to true knowledge. The attitude of bhakti has no place in the modern university.

We are now being told that it is a criminal act to question the integrity of the nation or the provisions of the constitution or even a Supreme Court Judgment within the premises of a university. The utterly bizarre application of the sedition law to words spoken at a gathering of students deflects comprehension. It shows utter disregard for the very concept of a constitutional democracy and its place in the university.

First of all, a serious argument can be made that the sedition law, as defined in section 124 A of the Indian Panel Code, had no place in a constitutional democracy based on the sovereignty of the people. The colonial law was designed to protect a government that was necessarily external to those over whom it ruled. One can see why any word, sign or visible representation that brought into hatred or contempt or excited disaffection, including disloyalty or enmity towards the government, might have been considered punishable by the colonial state. But how can the same argument apply to a government that is set up through periodic elections within a constitution that the people have given to themselves? The government in India today is not external or prior to the people constituted as a sovereign republic. Given the enormously wide meaning of “sedition” under this law, any criticism of the government of the day could be designated as incitement to disaffection and punished. Our courts, so fond of the modus vivendi rather than clear interpretation, have shied away from pronouncing section 124 A unconstitutional but have instead, in repeated judgments, emphasised the distinction between advocacy and incitement, and insisted that mere speech unconnected to actual harm caused against the state cannot be punished under this law. But who cares? The administration in every state has used the law to harass and intimidate the political opposition.

Entry into the University

Now we see this applied in a vicious form to the Indian university. This is not the first time the police have entered a university campus in India to arrest students. The old British convention of the sanctity of the university began to collapse in India from the 1970s when the campus became a site of political agitation drawing supporters and critics from outside. But leaving aside the years of the Emergency, never has a general campaign been launched by a national party in power that targets university students and teachers on the evidence of their speech alone as “anti- national” and charges them with sedition. It matters little if the charges do no stand up in court t in the end. Till then, intimidation and violence will be pursued by loyal vigilance gangs with impunity. It could lead to the tragic death of Rohith Venula, the horrific beating of Kanhaiya Kumar inside the premises of a court, or the harassment of hundreds whose names have been found on the phones of the arrested students.

There is a concerted campaign in the political arena, the media and even Parliament questioning the presumed autonomy of the university. The law must apply equally everywhere, we are being told, and so why should the university enjoy a special privilege? There is a fundamental confusion here, caused by lazy thinking or deliberate obfuscation, about the actual limits to freedom of speech in the university and the appropriate authorities who can enforce them. It is not as though anything can be said on a university campus. I cannot imagine a physics teacher wasting valuable time in class, except perhaps as a comic diversion, on someone claiming that the earth was flat or that the sun revolved around the earth. Depending on the appropriate forum, discipline and standard, university authorities always make decisions on what kinds of speech are irrelevant , confused or plain wrong. This includes discussions held outside the classroom which are an essential part of a vibrant campus life. But the crucial point is at the agencies of the state cannot be the appropriate authorities to make that judgment.

Take the issues involved in the latest controversy over University of Hyderabad and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Are we to accept that the present boundaries of the Indian nation state cannot be critically examined in the classroom or seminar? Are History students not to be encouraged to explore the archives to unearth the history of colonial conquests, treaties and partitions that resulted in the territorial boundaries of present-day India? When the sovereign state of India has added a territory (such as Goa and Sikkim) or given up any territory (most recently through a treaty with Bangladesh), are those not to be studied? And since when are judgments of the Supreme Court exempt from public discussion in India? Can students of law and the constitution not be expected to answer questions about the Afzal Guru judgment when eminent persons who oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle and others who feel the weight of evidence in that case was insufficient to merit the death penalty, have gone on record with their views? Is the status of Kashmir and the northern Eastern states a taboo subject in the university when the daily news is full of stories of protests and violence in those places? Can resistant forms of religious and cultural practice that differ from those of the dominant mainstream not be discussed by teachers and students? In that case, the university might as well be declared dead. Instead , let the government build national seminaries designed to produce patriotic morons.

Limits on freedom of speech

Should there not be limits to freedom of speech on campus? There already are. There are governed by conventional practices that are not always the same on every campus and are enforced by appropriate university authorities. Last week, an MA student made a presentation in my seminar on the publicity material and school textbook produced by Daesh (or ISIS) in Syria and Iraq. The material was spine-chilling in its crude militarism and in the intensity of hatred. But the students were able to engage in a serious discussion on why this poisonous message might attract some people. That is what a university should be able to do. Perhaps the discussion might not have been appropriate for younger, less mature students. But that is a judgment that teachers have to make.

We must insist that a judgment on what can or cannot be said within the precincts of a university cannot be made by the agencies of the state because they are not equipped to make such judgments. There must be a clear separation of jurisdiction. If there is a murder or robbery or riot on campus, the university authorities will recognise their inability to deal with the matter and hand it over to the appropriate state authority. On all matters concerning speech and expression, however, the university authorities must be the sole judge to decide on the limits. No other principle is compatible with the ideas of the modern university.

Why has the attack on the university come in this form at this time? We could explain it by pointing to the evaporation of the Modi magic, the collapse of his promises of quick economic prosperity, and the recent electoral reverses of the Bharatiya Janata Party. That does explain the increasing assertion by the core right-wing Hindu organisations and the impunity with which their cards can indulge in violence and intimation. But who are their targets on university campuses? Both at the University of Hyderabad and JNU, they have targeted students and teachers associated with a new, somewhat loose, platform that bring together dalit, adivasi and minority students with radical left groups. This is a new formation that has emerged in the last decade or so, especially in the campuses of the central universities where admission policies have brought in larger numbers of students from socially and economically marginal groups. This form does not quite reflect the party structures at national or state level and, as a result, has shown itself to be far more innovative and adventurous than the traditional parties in picking its causes and mobilising support.

This is the formation that the Hindu Right-wing has targeted on the university campus. Perhaps it thinks that the recent and rather loose organisation of these campus groups will make it easy to isolate and corner them. Whipping up fears of lurking terrorists and hatred towards their anti-national sympathisers might silence the mainstream opposition parties. The latest campaign is not unlike that against “Un-American Activities” launched by the right- wing Joseph McCarthy in the United States in the 1950s. The targets then were Communist and Soviet Sympathizers in the universities, the Science laboratories and the film industry. Something similar is happening today in India.

Broad-Based Resistance

Fortunately, the resistance has been dramatic, resolute and broad-based. The lead has been provided, most remarkably, by the accused students themselves. Nothing has galvanised the protest more than Rohith Vemula’s incredibly moving suicide note and Kanhaliya Kumar’s allegedly “anti-national” speech. They are testimony to the indomitable struggle against adversity that brought these two young men into the best research-based universities in the country and the utter sincerity of their commitment to a just and human future. That young people like them, who should have been the pride of their communities and nation, were instead attacked as anti-national criminals for noting more than their expressed opinion, has outraged everyone associated with the university everywhere in the world.

If the criminal charges against these students collapse in court, it might perhaps serve as a damper on the Hindu right-wing campaign, but it would be unwise to count only on that. The university is too precious a place for critical thought to be left to the vagaries of uncertain judicial decisions. Those who have a stake in the pursuit of knowledge as a vocation must mount a resolute defense of the autonomy of the university in India. And here, teachers would do well to learn a thing or two from their students.

Partha Chatterjee is a political theorist and historian. He studied at Presidency College in Calcutta, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. He divides his time between Columbia University and the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, where he was the Director from 1997 to 2007.
We thank the EMS Smrithi Organizing Committee, Ayaanthole for allowing us to publish this essay from Idea of India, Background Papers, EMS Smrithi Series compiled by M.N. Sudhakaran et al, Thrissur, June 2016.
 

The post Freedom of Speech in the University 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.