UoH SC/ST Faculty Forum
Press Release from the SC/ST Faculty Forum in Reply to VC’s Response to Resignations from SC/ST faculty
We reiterate our collective decision to resign from administrative positions for the following reasons:
The Forum represents the collective will of the community. Its decision is not reducible to individual members of the community. By asking the forum members to individually give reasons for their resignations, the Vice-Chancellor has downplayed the community’s experience of continuing caste atrocity on the campus. In fact, this mail of the VC may be construed as a threat against individual members of the community and suggestive of demoralizing the SC/ST faculty members in a way that infringes upon and stifles their right to complain against the Vice-Chancellor.
The Forum traces its history as a response to the rustication of ten Dalit students on the campus in 2001. Incidentally, Prof. AppaRao, was one of the main perpetrators of caste atrocities on the students at that time. Today, he is not only responsible for the suicide of Rohit Vemula on January 17th but also for the police brutalities and arrest of faculty members including Dr. K Y Ratnam, a Dalit faculty on trumped up charges. An atmosphere of caste violence prevails on the campus — of fear, intimidation, social boycott and the SC/ST community feels extremely insecure by his presence.
We vehemently condemn the expeditious and inappropriate manner in which the Vice-Chancellor accepted the resignation of the Controller of Examinations (CE) and the mischievous way through which other members of the community are persuaded to hold on to their resignations. This diabolic and unbecoming style of Prof. Appa Rao’s leadership is at once appalling and extremely damaging to the interests of the SC/ST community on the campus.
Under the circumstances, we demand that the Vice-Chancellor desist from holding individual Dalit faculty responsible for the collective decision of the Forum and thereby attempting to isolate and intimidate them. We reiterate again that we stand by the demands of JAC including that of removal of Prof. AppaRao from the Vice-Chancellor’s position.
~ SC/ST Faculty Forum
~~~
[Via Sowmya Dechamma]
