Category Archives: Right watch

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

An Open Letter to Prof Makarand Paranjape

15 Comments

Guest post by SHOURJENDRA NATH MUKHERJEE

Please note that this response was first sent to Swarajya Mag, where Prof Paranjpe’s Open letter appeared, but was not published. It was then sent to Kafila.

Dear Prof Paranjape

I am Shourjendra, an MPhil research scholar in the Department of History, DU. I write this letter as a rejoinder to your open letter in response to Maitreyee Shukla. Your open letter was not addressed to me and therefore you can feel free to not reply to my letter.

You sir, seem to reflect a lot of the opinions expressed very strongly by a section of the urban middle classes. Granted, these views are by their very nature not ‘fascist’ but nonetheless they help perpetuate and legitimate the regime in power. You are also one of the most eminent academicians to have sought to engage in these raging debates in the public sphere, and I very strongly appreciate you for this. Your open letter is one such statement and I would like to take this up as an opportunity to critically engage with some of the issues that you have raised. (Since, your statements are mostly uncritical appreciation and endorsement of these ideas, I would regard your statements as statements made by an academician who has paused to think academically.) Continue reading An Open Letter to Prof Makarand Paranjape →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Apropos Fetishizing Higher Education and University Politics

6 Comments

This is a guest post by PRATIK ALI.

[This article summarizes quite well the very many criticisms that have been raised from broadly the left of the political spectrum, about the Standwithjnu campaign. We do hope it generates a lively debate that will enlarge our horizons and strengthen the struggle against fascism]

Whether it has been the scrapping or stagnancy of the Non-NET Fellowship, the increased interference of the State in student activity in universities of higher-education, or merely the (routine) introduction of symbols of the ruling party in cultural institutions (of which universities are a part), a dangerous, and even strange trend is seen emerging in the student response: asserting their isolation from other sections of society as valuable uniqueness. Continue reading Apropos Fetishizing Higher Education and University Politics →

Debates, Education, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Who will take responsibility if the threat to “storm JNU” and kill students is carried out?

4 Comments
One Amit Jani has received considerable media attention with his threats to JNU students, promising a ‘shoot-out’ if JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid, do not meet the ‘deadline’ he has given for them to leave campus.
Almost immediately as this came to the attention of the JNU community, students and teachers took steps to bring this threat to the attention of Facebook, where the threat was initially posted; of Delhi Police and of JNU Administration.
These steps are listed below, so that later, nobody should be able to say We Did Not Know. The media, which covers every petty letter written to the police by ABVP with great alacrity, has not seen fit to recognize the steps being taken by an increasingly anxious JNU community over clear and specific threats to the life of our students, and indeed to everyone on JNU campus.
1. JNUSU wrote to the VC, bringing this time-bound threat to his attention. JNUSU also filed a complaint at the Vasant Kunj North Police Station to take appropriate action against those indulging in intimidation and threat to students. Students also met the SHO personally and requested him to take the issue seriously and file an FIR. A Complaint has also been sent to Commissioner of Police by JNUSU, with a copy of the complaint to LG and CM.
There has been no response from the police so far.
Bad ideas, Centre watch, Education, Government, Identities, Left watch, Movements, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

University of Minnesota Stands in Solidarity with the University of Hyderabad

2 Comments

We, the undersigned at the University of Minnesota, strongly condemn the current onslaught on protesting students and faculty at the University of Hyderabad. Following the tragic death of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula earlier this year, the UoH community has been questioning the role of the university administration in the circumstances leading to his suicide. Days before he took his life, five Dalit scholars including Vemula were expelled by the university administration. At the behest of the ruling government, they were punished for screening a film which documents the frightening spread of Hindu fundamentalism in India today. In the wake of their expulsion and then Vemula’s suicide, the UoH community spearheaded a nation-wide movement which draws attention to the horrific normalization of caste discrimination and the growing criminalization of dissent in universities in India. Instead of responding to the concerns raised by the movement, the university administration recently reinstated P Appa Rao to the office of the Vice Chancellor. As P Appa Rao has been charged for abetting Vemula’s suicide, this amounts to an utter mockery of the movement and also threatens the integrity of the on-going judicial enquiry about his death. This has rightfully angered the UoH community which registered its protest by peacefully occupying the office of the Vice Chancellor on 22 March 2016.

Continue reading University of Minnesota Stands in Solidarity with the University of Hyderabad →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Stand With UoH: Statement by Concerned Members of the IIT Bombay Community

2 Comments

 

 

We, the undersigned members of IIT Bombay community, strongly condemn the police repression that has been unleashed on students and faculty of University of Hyderabad who seek justice for Rohith Vemula, with the active connivance of the University administration. The testimonies of the events have been singularly disturbing. We cannot let educational institutions become play fields of state repression. Continue reading Stand With UoH: Statement by Concerned Members of the IIT Bombay Community →

Government, Politics, Right watch, Scams

JNUTA Statement on Suspension of Dr Shreya Bhattacharji in Jharkhand Central University

3 Comments

The Following is a statement from JNUTA

30 March 2016

On actions of the VC of Central University of Jharkhand

The JNUTA condemns in the strongest possible terms the suspension of Dr. Shreya Bhattacharji and her removal from administrative positions by the Vice Chancellor of Central University of Jharkand. What is simply outrageous is the action on her part that has been deemed as ‘misconduct’ – namely, inviting an eminent academic to be a Guest of Honour at a function in the University. She was assigned the responsibility to organize the event. The presumption underlying the accusation – that the credentials of the invited scholar, Professor M.N. Panini, were questionable as he is considered to be “mentor of the group of students of JNU, who were involved in anti-national activities in JNU campus recently” – would be laughable if it were not a scandal.

Clearly, the maligning of Professor Panini is simply on account of his association with JNU, where he served on the faculty with distinction for many years before his retirement, and has absolutely no relation with recent incidents in JNU.

Continue reading JNUTA Statement on Suspension of Dr Shreya Bhattacharji in Jharkhand Central University →

Debates, Government, Politics, Right watch

Bhagat Singh Then and Now: Harsh Mander

3 Comments

Guest post by HARSH MANDER

Eighty five years ago, on 23 March 1931, Bhagat Singh walked bravely, proudly to the gallows, his two young colleagues Rajguru and Sukhdev by his side. His lustre continues undimmed as an icon for succeeding generations, so that it is easy to forget he was only 23 years old. Subhash Bose spoke then of Bhagat Singh as a ‘symbol of the new awakening among youth’. Nehru saw in him ‘a spark that became a flame in a short time and spread from one end of the country to another dispelling the prevailing darkness everywhere’. His popularity rivalled that of Mahatma Gandhi.

In the decades after his passing, in times of public ferment, despair, confusion and anger, successive generations in India have found their own inheritors of young Bhagat Singh’s mantle, men and women embodying defiant youthful idealism and dissent, young people battling for social and economic equality, for true freedom, sparks that once again set aflame a beleaguered wearied country battling the darkness of the times.

Continue reading Bhagat Singh Then and Now: Harsh Mander →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Education, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

University of Hyderabad Alumni Teachers Protest the Brutal Police Acts on Campus

1 Comment

 

We are deeply pained to see the heinous attack by the state police and paramilitary force on students who are protesting the activities of Appa Rao Podile, the controversial Vice Chancellor of Hyderabad University. As the alumni of one of India’s premier educational institutions, presently teaching in various universities in India, and abroad, we strongly feel that such high handed actions and state sponsored police violence on students – both young men and women – must be condemned. This is crucial in an age of extensive authoritarian silencing. In this open communication with the higher ups in UoH, we would like to reiterate the fact that your dealing with the students has been miscalculated and has provided no reassurance at all. Blinded by a casteist mindset and a resurgent confidence in the wake of a political regime change, the university has failed miserably to instill much needed assurance in the students whose protests have been intensified since the forced suicide of Rohith Vemula.  To our utter dismay, we realise that the failed university administration has begun to work hand in glove with the police in order to silence students’ demands, which should have merited a careful hearing and meaningful resolution. However, the VC and his entourage in the university feel that such sustained efforts have no value in a democracy. The shameful activities of the Police-raj, and the subsequent choreographies of complacency at the university clearly display an abysmal misreading of subaltern issues and concerns about the every day survival of students from marginalised backgrounds. Continue reading University of Hyderabad Alumni Teachers Protest the Brutal Police Acts on Campus →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Empire/ Imperialism, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Let us not be little Arnolds in these times : Sudha K F

1 Comment

This is a guest post by SUDHA K F

“His right to march where he likes, meet where he likes, enter where he likes, hoot where he likes, threaten who he likes, smash as he likes. All this I think tends to anarchy. (Mathew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, 1866)

….It certainly does. Nothing is stranger, in Arnold’s often scrupulous, often self-consciously charming and delicate prose, than the escalation, the coarseness of these Hyde Park verbs…It is a point of view. Certainly it contrives to forget the start of the disorder: the defeat of the reform legislation, the locking of the gates against the reform meeting (for which, as it happens, there were no legal grounds). As so often, it picks up the story at a convenient point: at the point of response, sometimes violent, to repression; not at the repression itself. Even so, it is a point of view and a familiar one.”

 

 

The above excerpt is from an essay by the British Marxist thinker Raymond Williams “One Hundred Years of Culture and Anarchy”, which is part of his path-breaking collection of essays Culture and Materialism. The first paragraph is a quotation that Williams makes from Mathew Arnold’s essay Culture and Anarchy written in the 1860s in response to the workers’ demonstration at Hyde Park asking for voting rights for workers. Arnold’s argument and language is all too familiar to us now, as that is the language available to us through mainstream media and in general the middle class public sphere, while talking about the brutal deployment of force and violence on the students at the University of Hyderabad. Many seem to be in the business of picking up stories at convenient points. Continue reading Let us not be little Arnolds in these times : Sudha K F →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Break the Blockade: A Message from a Faculty Member at UoH

4 Comments

[I just got this message from a friend who teaches at UoH and has been trying to support students there. The situation sounds so serious, I asked her permission to post part of the email on Kafila]

 … It has been a very crazy time for us here. However, at this point, in my personal opinion the highest priority is to remove the blockade of entry into the campus. Let me document for you what is still happening in the campus.

 

1. Parents of students arrested and sister of Thathagata, the arrested faculty member are also not being allowed into campus.

2. Bhim Rao who is the currently acting lawyer of the Velivada students was also not allowed into the campus yesterday. Two of us faculty went and fought with the security officer and told him to give in writing that following the orders of the registrar, he is refusing entry of the lawyer into the campus. Then, he talked to the Registrar, went and got approval and allowed the lawyer in.

3. Rohith’s mother has attempted entry into the campus alone and with the help of civil society multiple times and has been refused entry always. On March 26th morning she was coming to the univ. and fell ill due to her high BP and her right hand going numb. She needed immediate medical attention. When a faculty member attempted to bring her into the campus so she can be looked at by the doctors in the health centre, she was not allowed. Then, doctors went out of the main gate and measured her vital parameters and got her shifted to a hospital. She was under observation for 24hrs.

4. There is still police patrolling on campus.

5. We hear now that new names have been added to an existing FIR in which students are named but not yet arrested.

So, the harassment continues. Students are standing strong despite the extreme intimidation by the administration.

I am sorry to say this and I may be accused of overstating it. However, I feel we are in Chattisgarh when I see the mainstream newspapers. We are in a war without witnesses too, it seems. No reporter is even attempting entry into the campus. There is no media outrage at what is happening on campus. There are no opinion pieces on what is happening on campus from any of the intelligentia of this country in the newspapers. I remember seeing a piece every day about JNU and we were with them. But, we now feel utterly abandoned by all. Is there no way to pressure at least the print media to cover what is happening? Maybe we do not know how to be publicity savvy?! We are stretched so thin trying to protect students – whenever there is any demo by students and so on, at least two of us faculty are around to be at least a witness if not to stop any attacks.

Appreciate any help/advice from you people on this. But, our appeal is that civil society with political parties HAS TO BREAK THE BLOCKADE OF ENTRY. The Registrar’s order states: political parties, politicians, external student organisations and media ONLY. How come lawyers are not being allowed inside? How come parents and families of affected students and faculty are not being allowed inside? What is happening in this country?

Continue reading Break the Blockade: A Message from a Faculty Member at UoH →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Solidarity Statement from Concerned EFLU Alumni Against State Crackdown in UoH

Leave a comment

 

We, the alumni of English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, condemn in the strongest possible words the brutality unleashed by the police with the cooperation of the university administration on 22 March 2016, after the Vice Chancellor, Prof Appa Rao Podile, ‘took charge’. We are disturbed seeing the chain of events that the VC triggered to ensure ‘his smooth return’, in spite of being accused of abetting the suicide of research scholar, Rohith Vemula. In the wake of an ongoing case, the VC chose to orchestrate his return with the aid of the police so that any voice of dissent opposing his return is crushed mercilessly. As former students of this university, we are extremely angry seeing this State sponsored violence inside a university and disturbed seeing students become victims to it. An ideal university must exist as a space for dialogue, dissent and strive to be devoid of power structures inherent in relationships that students have amongst themselves, with the university workers and the teachers. However, like the world outside of the university space, all of our classrooms have not in effect been a ‘clean space’. Rather, it has been a microcosm of the realities that exist outside of our pristine gates. Thus, when ASA activist and research scholar, Rohith Vemula took his life, what was thrown open to this nation was the bare truth of caste that the intellectual and political class has been avoiding for long. Instead of interrogating this systemic problem that has been a part and parcel of this nation since its formation, the UoH administration under VC Prof Appa Rao sought to suppress a student movement, unleasing a first of its kind seeking justice for Vemula and all other Dalit, Adivasi and Bahujan students that were ruthlessly harassed and humiliated by universities. Triggering nation-wide protests, the movement had also become a topic of discussion in the center where news such as the death of a Dalit student had often been blacked out.
It is in the wake of this two months long peaceful student protest that the VC used the might of the police and the RAF to ‘protect himself’ from the democratically protesting students. Alleging that the protesters vandalised the VC’s residence (with zero evidence), the police came down heavily on the student protesters and went onto assault faculty members who were trying to protect these students. Arresting 30 students and 2 faculty members and taking them to ‘unknown’ locations, the police managed to create an atmosphere of terror for the students of UoH, wherein possibilities of fake encounters creeped on everyone’s mind. If this wasn’t enough, the VC also managed to convince workers to go on strike and leave the student community without food for 48 hours. Power and internet were subsequently cut off and women students who tried to hold their ground were threatened with rape by the RAF. When there was no food, a few students who took the initiative of cooking food at the university premises were beaten and detained, all the while when the UoH VC had taken ‘steps’ to store milk and water at his residence. Now, with reports of the police particularly picking and beating up the Muslim students badly, among those who were arrested, we are forced to believe that what happened at UoH is the ugliest face of this regime with respect to student community in India. Even more so with the Telengana government standing as mute spectator to the protest, fully knowing how students across universities in Hyderabad had supported the Telengana movement. The police has also released a fresh list of students to be arrested.
This is a planned and systematic attempt to break down the students movement demanding action against the VC and the implementation of Rohith Act. In the wake of such brutalities, we are amazed seeing the spirit of the students of UoH in standing up to the bullies and goons who have taken law into their hands. We stand in solidarity with them, their struggle and condemn the violation of their rights and dignity by the VC and the state government. We condemn the branding of students as ‘antinationals’ and vandalisers, the physical and emotional abuse of the arrested students and faculty, the assault on women students, faculty and media persons and the ruthless targeting of Muslim students by the police and the RAF. We condemn in strong words the rape threats and the police rule that was implemented on campus violating basic human rights. We demand the immediate withdrawal of cases against the students and faculty and the withdrawal of the police from the campus. We demand that the VC be removed from inflicting further harm to the students and that Rohith Act be implemented with immediate effect.
We have also seen photos and videos of the police brutally attacking student protesters in Chennai, Calicut and Mumbai who raised their voices against the atrocity meted by the UoH students. We condemn the act of the state government in the respective places and their draconian attempts of charging the protesters with IPC 153 etc to silence any voice of dissent.
In solidarity

Continue reading Solidarity Statement from Concerned EFLU Alumni Against State Crackdown in UoH →

Debates, Government, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Insurgent Ambedkar and a New Moment in Politics

Leave a comment

Both the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) events were “ultra-Left movements” also involving a small section of “jihadis”, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley contended on Sunday.

In the case of JNU, the predominant section of those involved in the agitation was “ultra-Left” barring a small section of “jihadis”, who had their faces masked during a demonstration on the campus on February 9 in which anti-national slogans were raised, Mr. Jaitley said.

The name of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was “unfairly used” in the case of HCU, where protests erupted after the suicide by research scholar Rohith Vemula, he told PTI. (emphasis added. See full report in The Hindu here)

 

Ambedkar at the barricades, Express photo, courtesy Tashi Tobgyal
Ambedkar at the barricades, Express photo, courtesy Tashi Tobgyal

Ambedkar has become an insurgent figure today, breaking out of all the pre-set molds in which he was sought to be confined all these decades. He is no longer neither a mere Dalit leader, nor is he simply the Constitution-maker and constitutionalist who taught us to have faith in the law – the two comfortable and domesticated roles in which he has been presented to us so far by all interested parties and the powers-that-be. In the face of the new Sanghist/ fascist assault, he has broken his chains to come out on the streets, as universities and colleges across the country begin to reverberate with his spirit of rebellion. Ambedkar, the name and the face, is ubiquitous by his presence in all the struggles that mark this moment. Even as the struggle of the HCU students for justice for Rohith Vemula continues and the news of the first victory – their release on bail – trickles in, the figure of Ambedkar at the barricades gives the lie to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s claim above: that HCU and JNU movements were ‘ultra-Left movements’ and ‘jihadis’, and that “the name of Dr Ambedkar was ‘unfairly used’ in the case of HCU. How easy it would be, Mr Jaitley, to thus pronounce the dog mad and go about your business, and how embarrassing to have to confront Ambedkar facing your police and lathis, your courts and prisons. Continue reading Insurgent Ambedkar and a New Moment in Politics →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Education, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Police Attack on SIO March in Support of UoH in Calicut: Students Approach Child Rights Commission

1 Comment
The students arrested during the march conducted by Students Islamic Organisation in Calicut, Kerala on 26 March in protest of the police brutality in Hyderabad University filed a petition to the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights. The Calicut Town Police lathicharged the peaceful protesters near the Calicut Head Post Office. About 40 were injured and about 30 protesters were arrested. SIO leaders who visited the police station were also arrested. Several of the protesters who faced violence were school students. Worst, the arrested students have been charged with Section 153 for instigating communal riots!

Continue reading Police Attack on SIO March in Support of UoH in Calicut: Students Approach Child Rights Commission →

Education, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Interim Report of the Independent National Fact Finding team on violence at HCU

1 Comment

Excerpts from the Interim Report published in Round Table India

Members of the Fact Finding Team:

Henri Tiphagne, Human Rights Defenders Alert, India, Tara Rao, Amnesty Intl, Burnard Fatima, International Movement against all forms of Discrimination and Racism, Kuffir Nalgundwar, Round Table India, Kiruba Munusamy, Supreme Court Lawyer, Beena Pallical, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, Ramesh Nathan, National Dalit Movement for Justice, Asha Kowtal, All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, Paul Divakar, Asia Dalit Rights Forum.

The team comprising of senior activists, academicians and lawyers have met with the students, faculty members, the police, the Home Minister and local civil society organisations. The team will be presenting a more detailed report at a later date based on the compiled narratives and testimonies. This team was constituted as a response to the terrifying news of the escalation of violence at HCU on March 22, 2016.

Recommendations:

The Fact Finding Team gives the following recommendations in restoring the normalcy and peace in the University:

1. In the best academic interest and in restoring a peaceful environment in University and in order to ensure a fair investigation is done, the FF Team recommends that the Vice Chancellor Mr Appa Rao must be suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
2. Police need to step up their response in dealing with the cases filed (VC, and student arrests) with efficiency and due legal process both in the case of the VC and the arrested students.
3. Normalcy of the University must be restored immediately. Free mobility in and out of the University and this must be brought back to regular functioning. This is essential for the academic health of the University, which has suffered significantly.
4. Criminal investigation should be immediately conducted and action should be taken against the police who have wilfully neglected their duty under Section 4 of the SC ST PoA Amendment Act 2016.
5. Recommendation to the State Government should play a facilitating role in bringing back normalcy to the campus.
6. The Central Government must swiftly and efficiently ensure a smooth transition of the leadership of the University in the best interest of the primary objective of the University of Academic Excellence by replacing the Vice Chancellor in close consultation with the University students and Faculty.

For the full Interim Report, follow this link.

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Really Mr Jaitley, so you’ve won the first round of the nationalism debate?

3 Comments

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Saturday said the BJP has won the “first round of the nationalism debate” in the country as, according to him, “people who raised anti-India slogans till now have been forced to say Jai Hind, if not Bharat Mata ki Jai” – See full report in the Indian Express here.

Nationalism in Action, image courtesy Rahman Abbas
Nationalism in Action, image courtesy Rahman Abbas

So, Mr Jaitley,what exactly have you won or lost? Let’s take count.

(a) First, there has been no ‘debate”, for a debate is conducted in a free environment, not with threats of sedition charges, arrests, killings and lynch mobs on the rampage. So, here is an open challenge for round  two: Join any of us in an open debate – without any of your repressive props. Field literally anyone, the best you can produce on your side, including your party president who thinks the medieval Ahomiya king, Sukapha defeated the Mughals “satrah satrah baar” when Sukapha died in 1268 and Mughal rule was established only in 1526.  Watch Amit Shah in action here:

Continue reading Really Mr Jaitley, so you’ve won the first round of the nationalism debate? →

Education, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Updates from Hyderabad Central University

1 Comment

A Suneetha, The Citizen Bureau, Kalpana Kannabiran, Preethi Raghunath.

A. SUNEETHA, Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies, Hyderabad:

This is to inform you all that strong local support is building up in Hyderabad for the students and faculty of University of Hyderabad. Here are some of the details.

a) During the two day shut down of UOH by the administration, students and faculty of EFLU and others sent food to UOH. Lamakaan opened their canteen to the students. A few offered their homes to the students who may have wanted to leave the campus.

b) On the legal front, support has poured in from the faculty and students. The faculty have offered generous support to stand surety for their students. Also crowds of students and faculty are in the court to express solidarity.

Continue reading Updates from Hyderabad Central University →

Education, Identities, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Why is Prof K.Y. Ratnam being targeted? Friends of Prof Ratnam

Leave a comment

indexProf K.Y.Ratnam is the last person one expects to get arrested on charges of destruction of public property or provoking violence. So we were dismayed to find that he is one of the people arrested in UOH along with 27 young students and a faculty member in this week’s crackdown in the University.

But perhaps one should expect that he is on the watch-list of the current Vice Chancellor Prof. Appa Rao Podile. In 2001, Prof Ratnam, then an assistant warden of hostels, was targeted by administrative humiliation, which led to student support and the rustication of eight dalit students from the university. The current vice chancellor Prof Appa Rao Podile was then the chief warden of the hostels. He was the authority who handed out the humiliating posting to Ratnam. He has also been charged with pursuing the rustication of the nine dalit students. His antagonism with Ratnam therefore is well known.

Prof. Ratnam has been one among the SC/ST faculty who have extended whole hearted support to the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice in HCU formed after Rohith Vemula’s suicide two months ago. In the melee which led to his arrest, Ratnam was seen and heard pleading with the police not to be too harsh with the students. And this seems to be the ‘offence’ that he was arrested for. According to those who visited him in the Cherlapally prison he was beaten by the police in the van and in the police station too. And sustained injuries in his face.

Following his arrest he is likely to be suspended from the university. If this happens his course with 72 students is likely to remain unfinished. This would definitely trouble him, being the conscientious teacher that he is. He has had several dalit M Phil and PhD students successfully defend their work under his guidance over the past two decades. And his gentle and persuasive force towards rational thinking in the anti-caste struggles is too well known in the university and the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh too.

A few lines about his other academic credentials will not be out of place here. He started the Centre for Ambedkar Studies in the University of Hyderabad. And is the first teacher to take up Ambedkar’s writings in the curriculum and has taught the issue of caste and oppression in the department of political science. He has been part of a recent collective initiative that published a volume  analyzing and criticizing the attempt by the RSS to appropriate the thought of Ambedkar.

Conscientiousness, academic credentials and political commitment seem to be the crimes for which Prof. Ratnam is being targeted by Prof. Appa Rao Podile’s administration. Fortunately they are not crimes in the Indian Penal Code.

Friends of Prof.K.Y.Ratnam 
(R.Srivatsan, A.Suneetha, Gogu Shyamala and others) 
Education, Government, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

CPDR Condemns the Brutal Police Attack on the Dalit Students and Faculty at Hyderabad Central University

1 Comment

STATEMENT FROM CPDR, MAHARASHTRA

Yesterday, on 22 March 2016, the Hyderabad Police brutally attacked the students and faculty of the Hyderabad Central University who protested against resumption of Appa Rao Poddile, Vice Chancellor. Many students and two faculty members were badly injured in the police attack. Some 36 students along with two professors, K Y Ratnam and Tathagat Sengupta were taken into custody, the whereabouts of them remains unknown till today.

Appa Rao Poddile, the Vice Chancellor, who was sent on leave in the wake of students’ agitation that broke out over the suicide of a Dalit scholar, Rohith Vemula, joined back the University. Appa Rao’s prejudiced actions against the Dalit scholars were exposed to the world during the flare up over Rohith’s death. He, along with Bandaru Dattatreya, and Smriti Irani are clearly responsible for his institutional murder. Hyderabad Police had accordingly booked him along with the union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, N Sushil Kumar, the HCU Unit of the ABVP and one Vishnu for abetment of suicide and also for violations of the SC/ST Atrocities Act. The cases under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code and also the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (prevention of atrocities) Act were filed in Gachibowli police station under Cyberabad police commissionerate limits. In its characteristic obstinacy the HRD Ministry sent him back to take charge of the university.

Continue reading CPDR Condemns the Brutal Police Attack on the Dalit Students and Faculty at Hyderabad Central University →

Education, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression in solidarity with HCU

2 Comments

Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) strongly condemns the brutal police action against the students of the University of Hyderabad. The students, who were exercising their democratic right to protest, were lathi-charged, beaten and manhandled and women students were mauled and threatened with sexual assault. Students and faculty members were forcibly dragged into police vans, thrashed and moved from thana to thana to prevent them from contacting their lawyers and families. They have also been mercilessly beaten while in custody. As many as 34 students and three faculty members have been sent to jail – the beatings have continued even after remand.

For the last two months, the students of the Universty of Hyderabad have been protesting the institutional murder of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula. Their campaign for justice for Rohith has reverberated across the country and has rallied thousands in support of their call for an end to caste discrimination in educational institutions.

The police action follows hard on the heels of the re-appearance of the VC on the campus. This individual is one of the key actors in the events leading to Rohith’s death, and stands charged with offences under the SC/ST Atrocities Act. He was supposedly on indefinite leave pending the results of the inquiry instituted against him, and the students protested against this stealthy attempt at his re-instatement with a gherao of the VC’s lodge.

The response of the Government of Telengana and the University has been to turn the campus into a war zone. The students are under siege – hostel messes have been locked down, electricity and water have been cut off and the gates sealed to prevent the entry of media persons and “outsiders” trying to provide food, water and medical aid to the injured. Students who have volunteered to keep the kitchens running to feed their comrades have been beaten and their provisions confiscated. At least one of these volunteers is critically injured and still not out of danger. The media is being fed with concocted reports that are contradicted by video footage taken by students, with testimonies describing the attacks and showing their injuries. The continued presence on the campus of large numbers of armed police tells its own story.

The strategy of the BJP government – to crush all dissent and establish a totalitarian saffron regime in institutions of higher education – is now visible in campuses across the country, from Hyderabad to JNU, Pune and Chennai. The HRD Ministry is brazenly using every possible instrument to foist their regressive, limited and flawed version of education on the academic community. The government has shown its willingness to use force to stifle critical enquiry and independent thought, and to silence dissent and questioning.

We stand strongly with the students of the University of Hyderabad in their struggle to protect democracy on the campus and to challenge and combat casteism and discrimination in educational institutions. We salute them, and their comrades in struggle in universities across the country, for bringing new energy and hope to our democracy through their determined opposition to the repressive casteist, communal and patriarchal ideology and world view that the Hindutvavadi regime seeks to foist on us.

We salute Radhika Vemula for her determination to claim justice for her son and for the lakhs of Dalit students who are daily facing violence and discrimination in their pursuit of education.

We condemn the actions of the state government, which has shown its subservience to the Modi sarkar and cynically sold out its commitment to the students without whom Telengana would not have come into being.

We demand Continue reading Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression in solidarity with HCU →

Bad ideas, Debates, Education, Government, Identities, Left watch, Media politics, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Statement by Concerned Faculty from The English and Foreign Languages University on the Police Crackdown at HCU

2 Comments

We, the concerned faculty from The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, strongly condemn the police brutality at the University of Hyderabad on 22nd March 2016, after the return of Prof. Appa Rao Podile, the Vice-Chancellor accused of abetting the suicide of the Dalit Research Scholar Rohith Vemula. As an academic community, we are extremely disturbed by the excessive interference of the state machinery, administrative conspiracies, the abuse of power and systemic oppression that prevail in many of the universities in India of late. A university should be a just and egalitarian space. But the suicides of Dalit students with the recent case of Rohith Vemula lay bare systemic structures of oppression and institutional legitimization of caste violence existing within Indian universities. Our university spaces need serious re-vamping to ensure equal opportunity, social justice and critical discourses. Continue reading Statement by Concerned Faculty from The English and Foreign Languages University on the Police Crackdown at HCU →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates, Education, Government, Identities, Law, Media politics, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

A Fig-leaf Called ‘Vandalism’ by UoH Students: SC and ST Faculty Forum and Concerned Teachers of University of Hyderabad

5 Comments

 

For the past three days the news media has been circulating widely, stories about ‘vandalism’ by students of the University of Hyderabad that led to the police crackdown. Surprisingly little information is actually there on the actual context, timing, duration and nature of the vandalism. It appears that the claim that a group of students indulged in acts of vandalism is enough to justify a full scale war on the entire campus community of over 5000 students.  Yet this charge of vandalism is no more than a fig leaf . Continue reading A Fig-leaf Called ‘Vandalism’ by UoH Students: SC and ST Faculty Forum and Concerned Teachers of University of Hyderabad →