NEW DELHI: Days after a PhD scholar threatened to commit suicide if he did not get clearance for a one-year extension of his senior research fellowship, more students have come out alleging caste discrimination in Jawaharlal Nehru University. On Tuesday, the JNU administration said there were some issues with a particular centre and a meeting has been called on February 8 to resolve the problem.PhD scholar Madan Meher had on January 22 written to the vice-chancellor alleging caste discrimination at the Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament under the School of International Studies. Though he was against suicide, Meher said, “There is no other option left for me.”Studying at JNU since 2008, Madan Meher is from Sambalpur in western Odisha. He enrolled for MPhil at the Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament under the SC category. He has presented papers at 14 national and international conferences and has also written two books.“OBC, SC and ST students are eligible for Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship and there is no test for that. But we were dissuaded from applying in a very subtle manner. We were told we are good for nothing and were getting free fellowship,” he says. “Therefore, I applied for Junior Research Fellowship and got it. I completed MPhil under nonNET category. Now for PhD field work, we are allowed to travel to a foreign country. But the centre asked me to submit my work without the field work. A committee is set up for selection of the field work and I was selected in the first category. The university gave me the money. But the centre delayed the process, asking me to re-draft my papers. The delay cost me my field trip and I could not go to Brussels in 2013.”“I had Rs 66,000 with me, the money the university gave for the Brussels trip. I spent it on my grandmother, had a paralytic attack, thinking I could anyway repay from my Senior Research Fellowship, which was hiked to Rs 28,000 per month in 2013. But my centre de-registered me,” he alleges.Meher said: “I was deregistered and denied my fellowship grants. And such has been the attitude of the centre towards Dalits that we are not even allowed to go for foreign field trips even after the university has sanctioned the funds.”“I was denied the fellowship because of a 16-month gap, for which the centre is responsible as it has deregistered me. Even the University Grants Commission said I can be given the grants with approval of the VC. Even when the VC is fine with me getting the grants, the centre is creating hurdles,” said Meher, adding that it shouldn’t be thought that he had drawn inspiration from the Hyderabad University case of Rohith Vemula because in his case the harassment dates back to 2011.He claimed RTI replies had revealed that at least since 2006, not a single Dalit student had completed his or her PhD from the centre and most had to drop out. Other students are also claiming being victims. While Santosh from Telangana said he had to leave the centre due to harassment, another MPhil student from CIPOD, Kavita Patel, has been waiting since last October for her registration as she has scored 4.66 grade points while the minimum to be eligible for writing a dissertation is 5.“Students who score between grade 4 and 5 are allowed to write a test. This was a resolution passed by the academic council of the university in October 2015. All other centres have implemented this but my centre simply refuses to do so, and I am still waiting,” said Kavita. “When I applied for reevaluation, even before the process started, I was told that nothing will come out of it. I am from a poor family, and without the financial aid, I can’t survive in JNU. And that is exactly how Dalits are being shunted out of the centre, by turning their life into hell.”Accepting that there has been a problem with the centre, S K Sopory, outgoing VC, said: “I am completely against any students being made to leave the campus without a degree and the AC has in fact passed a resolution last year. However, the centre is refusing to implement it restrospectively. However, we have a meeting on February 8 and I will have a word with the new VC.”