Dalit Students In Hyderabad Central University Forced To Vacate Their Rooms

By P Victor Vijay Kumar

06 January, 2016

Countercurrents.org

Dalits are asked to vacate their habitation and find a place away from main stream living in Hyderabad. Yes, it happened in Hyderabad in no other place than Hyderabad Central University. Five Dalit students were asked to vacate their rooms and, as they resisted, the rooms were locked by the hostel administration. The formal reason , to our appalling minds, among other things, is that they have opposed death sentence to Yakub Memon !

This needs a little background to explain how universities are turning into Agraharas and getting into the fold of Hindutva. AmbedkarStundents Association , a leading student wing, when decided to screen “ Muzaffarnagar Baqi Hai “ , ABVP tried to stall the screening and, in the process, a student of ABVP passed certain derogatory remarks on ASA studentsin Facebook and hence was demanded an apology for the same. Finally, he had to submit a written apology looking to the mass student resentment. This, however, was taken up by the local BJP and RSS people, hand-in-hand with ABVP, pressurised VC to expel the ASA leaders on false allegations, though, a committee appointed by the VC gave a favourable report finding no fault of ASA on any of the allegations. Still, VC issued a notice of expulsion, under pressure, which was suspended on account of stubborn protestfrom the students. Subsequently, as part of BJP’s Hindutva game, Mr. Apparao, a Kammaman, who was appointed by BJP as VC after retirement of VC Mr. Sharma, a Brahmin, received a letter from Ministry of Human Resources Development, which is recommended by none other than Mr. Bandaru Dattatreya , Secunderabad MP and Minister of Labour and Employment,calling ASA ‘ casteist, extremist and anti-national’ and suggesting MS. Smriti Irani, Minister of Human Resources and Development, to “change this for better”as these students are “freely” supporting certain unpalatable views like opposing death sentence to Yakub Memon.

Further to this, a petition has been filed by Sanghi forces seeking explanation from VC on the dissent expressed by ASA on Yakub Memon’s case. As a rejoinder to both, VC , without seeking any explanations nor enquiring into the history of the case, took a decision to expel Dalit students from the hostels.

Here , we have 3 things in front of us – (i) Brahminisation of University Administration ; ( ii) the way dissent is demonised ; (iii) expulsion of Dalit students pursued as a matter of recourse to “ correct “ the situation.

Expulsion – a form of untouchability

Let us look at these, point by point from last to first. ‘Expulsion ‘ as disciplinary measure deals with the following things – social isolation, social shaming and near withdrawal of right to education. It is pertinent to note that all these expelled students are raised mostly from petty farmers/labour sections of Dalits. In western countries, the ‘expulsion and exclusion’ is resorted in ‘most extreme’ conditions and it needs an appearance before Board of Education to substantiate the decision and present the case. Further, in many countries, it gives a ‘right to appeal ‘against these decisions and, many a times, it so happens that the decision gets overturned.

Indian Govt. adopted “Right to Education “ in 2014 to impart education to all children below the age of 14. While this remained on paper, education beyond that level to Dalits has become herculean task. As per UGC statistics, less than 7% of Dalits, Muslims and Adivasi are able to pursue studies beyond the age of 18 years. With this, we have to understand the extent of polarisation happening in the education system in India. While the teachers and students get filled up entirely with forward castes, the room for lower castes and Dalits is hardly left out ,despite reservations. In the circumstances, exercising the disciplinary actions like expulsions , especially on Dalits, Adivasi and Muslims, will only help wicked skewing up of education system in India.

In fact, only handful of Dalit students in HCU , rose from agriculture sections, are pursuing research education, which is a farfetched dream of these sections. Out of these getting 5 students expelled is too pernicious to implement.

In summary, this expulsion is nothing but another form of social isolation and social shaming and doesn’t serve any better purpose of ‘bringing in ‘ discipline into students. Social isolation on social grounds has become an old casteist formula. Post-modernist effects on Brahminism can also be felt in these fashions of functioning. Indescribable acts of untouchability are taking various forms.Unotuchability was founded on ritual purity which is gradually transforming to ‘ compliance purity’ or ‘ consent purity’ . Under any imagination, the learned administration of University could not mull over ‘how an expulsion can make students of HCU to think in favour of supporting death sentence to Yakub Memon ‘.We come back to wondering “then what for expulsion is ? “ . The Brahminical minds are teemed with a guided agenda.

Let us hypothetically consider that these students are ‘manufacturing terrorists’ in the campus with their campaigned opinions. If you look at the brahminical hypocrisy here – any stealthyspreading of anti-Government opinions is viewed as a ‘threat’ to the country and the entire brahminical state intelligence system gets hyper-active. Contrarily, they cannot even tolerate a public action of propagating opinions. While this is so – we need to ask basic question “ can simply opinions and its propaganda manufacture terrorists or going to shake the Govt. and its governance ? “BJP came to power with just 30% of votes and 70% did not want them. There is huge population in India which never wanted BJP in the power, meaning there is a highly countable population, mainly Dalits, adivasis and muslims, not just resented BJP, but , we can easily term the feeling as “ hate “ or “ despise “ or “ disgust “ or “ contempt “. The basic common sense fails to understand how many terrorists areborn out of this disappointment on account of the electoral farce.

Demonising and vilifying dissent

Now, we come to look at see“ then why exaggerating and extrapolating dissent happens to portray it as demonic ? “ . First of all, we need to look back and realise that , we have never got into such political context to debate on this question. There was, always, suppression of dissent on a different scale and different context. During these times, we ponder over silly and primitive questions surrounding dissent. These brahminical forces are even more terrified when this dissent is carried over the shoulders of Dalits , as Dalits, are the only forces in Indian History whofought tooth and nail with brahminical Hindutva and Manuvadifoces. These days, we get into such stupid questions of “ whether keeping beef in a fridge is antinational and is it a dissent ? “, and , funnily, these turned out to be political questions which Brahmins sit on both sides and debate. As such, we have lost ourselves to a bigger question “ are we loosing common sense to Brahminism ? “

Phenomenon of demonisation of opinions is born out of non-conformity with majoritarianism, which is nothing but Brahminism in our country. Brahminism when enjoins with the class bias, it sabotages all and assumes headstrongnessin its dealings, which is conspicuous in this case. We can observe that the corporate plundering is projected to be a common phenomenon now-a-days and we have got accustomed by our brahminical media to casually show Adani accompanying Modi in all his foreign visits and there is nothing strange about it !

This Brahminical ruling wants to send a clear message to all - “corporate hegemony alongwith brahminical monopoly is going to stay here and never dare to oppose it in any form “. While Mr. BandaruDattatreya , himself, writes a letter clearly and openly that he did not like this difference of opinion in students and Ministry calling for an action on such representation is a simple drama of casteist diplomacy.

Anointing ‘powerful positions’ with Brahminical forces

At this point, this article gets ripe enough to discuss – how the machinery of administration is gradually ensured to go into the fold of “ Manu “. I have got a chance to get associated recently with the undeserved and brutal arrest of Dr. G.N. Saibaba, a 90% physically challenged and wheel-bound Professor, for the sole reason that he stood in favour of Adivasis against exploitation of large corporates and endeavoured to gather international opinion. While looking into the various benches of Supreme Court for filing petition against cancelling bail for him, it is found that atleast 7 out of 12 benches in Supreme court are already filled with “ BJP Supporters “. Appointing a party supporter was never a surprise to India. These BJP supporters are not just supporters of Party alone but their brahminical ideology as well. This is no secret to learn that the Government is gradually changing the heads of various institutions, Departments with several loyalists and ideologues. The Sanghi Government is creepily encroaching the entire bureaucracy to execute and implement Hindutva agenda with no resistance. Same way, there is no digression in steering the administration of HCU with a newly anointed VC.

While , firstly, HCU administration has blindly demonstrated its loyalty to its guided agenda , it blatantly neglected the provisions of SC/ST ( Prevention of Atrocities ) Act. This act of HCU administration can be classified as imposing ‘social disability ‘ ondalit students, which is nothing but denial of access to places ( of education) in the name of punishment, which is unsupported by any concrete explanation.

This article is to appeal all democratic forces and dalit intelligentsia to realise the fascism of present Government is taking its own form of casteist diplomacy using state machinery systematically. Present Government is hell bent to implement its brahminical agenda, by hook or crook, albeit, drawing a line at the edge of legality and administration management. At times, it is not flinching back to surreptitiously cross the line to move forward wherever the protest is weak. It is high time that all the democratic forces and Dalit, Adivasi and Minority forces join together and raise voice to condemn the single-minded brahminical actions of HCU Vice Chancellor and its Governing Body. It is to urge everyone to condemn the one-sided action of HCU inflicting Dalit students.

P Victor Vijay Kumar is a CFO of an infrastructure company, by profession. A dalit writer cum critic



