EFLU Students for Justice
“If I find the Constitution being misused, I shall be the first to burn it.” ~ B.R. Ambedkar
We, the students of the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, strongly condemn the administration’s gross manipulation of procedures in rusticating PhD scholars Mohan Dharavath and Satish Nainala and M.A student Subhash Kumar for participating in a protest against the closure of the 24 hour reading room. Students and teachers of this campus have consistently struggled to realize a vision for greater inclusivity, democracy and justice. Our struggle has by no means been made easier by the shameful ways in which Vice-Chancellor Sunaina Singh’s administration has systematically conspired against and eroded the spaces for dialogue and dissent that students, teachers and non-teaching staff have carefully constructed over the years.
Social, political, human rights activists join the students’ protest against the rustication of three students from marginalized communities
How many other university campuses can boast of three student suicides; each one a narrative of administrative indifference, misconduct, shameless discrimination on grounds of region, religion, caste and sexuality? How many other Vice-Chancellors will zealously protect Heads of Departments for methodically failing students from marginalized backgrounds (an ethnic cleansing of sorts)? How many Dalit alumnae will you meet with stories of humiliation etched in to their memories of university life? The point here is not to establish EFLU as an exception because it is not.
Instances of selective targeting of students, Hinduization of campus spaces with simultaneous repression of Dalit-Bahujan and minority cultures, coercion of dissenting individuals and communities, moral policing etc., have become the norm. Such fascist ideologies do not only circulate in the realm of legal amendments and implications. The polarization of opinion and discourse against students who ‘contaminate and radicalize” academic spaces is more or less complete.
JNU students express solidarity
And who are these contaminants? Students who have the ‘privilege’ of reservation; first generation literates from rural backgrounds; young men and women from conflict zones; individuals dealing with ‘phobia-inducing’ sexualities, minorities—they have no rightful place in Central Universities. Their sheer existence (forget even the articulation of ‘difference’) is a spot on the virgin terrain on which our caste Hindu education system aspires to function. And we know how vigorously University administrations chafe away at that spot; until it is shamed, weakened and dead. Year after year, reservations will not be met, hostels will remain without basic amenities, students will die without adequate and immediate medical attention, women will breathe in this nauseating air of upper caste Hindu protectionism and Lyngdoh commission will dance on your representative aspirations.
And how will this nasty vindictive caste Hindu authoritarianism reproduce itself?
Frantically, by illegally rusticating students who expose their corrupt practices; by forcefully institutionalizing students to ‘mental asylums’, by hefty monetary fines on resisting students and by filing police cases against students who ‘communalize’ the campus by celebrating ‘Asura Week’ whilst offering flowers and a wad of cash (they call it donation) at the ABVP organized Ganesh Pandal. PhD Scholars will not be allowed to travel abroad lest they tarnish the University’s hallowed reputation. And if you have a vigilant camera, then you will be hunted and harassed, until you leave the University.
Ambedkar Students’ Association, University of Hyderabad, expresses solidarity
The wind is blowing Right-Ways. The harder it blows, the faster burns the democratic tenets of our Constitution. This write-up was an attempt to put into context Mohan, Satish and Subhash’s predicament. We urge students, teachers, administrators and non-teaching staff across university campuses to recognize the everyday struggles of students who fight the often hostile spaces of University campuses; to recognize what they put at stake when they take up the initiative to fight for themselves and others, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes purely on principle.
Please sign this petition and share widely.
~
Please also read related articles:
Withdraw Rustication! Suspend Corrupt VC!
Condemn Illegal Rustication of Students in EFLU by Casteist Administration
~~~
