Students object to suspension of ‘brilliant’ Dalit student

The decision by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai, India, to suspend a Dalit PhD student for alleged “anti-national activities” activities is facing stiff opposition from students who are calling on the institution to revoke the suspension, denouncing it as unfair.

The term ‘Dalit’ refers to a wide range of social groups that were historically marginalised in the Hindu caste hierarchy.

The two-year suspension of Ramadas Prini Sivanandan (30) was announced on 18 April by the TISS administration, which claimed Sivanandan was guilty of a “serious violation of [the] discipline code made for students” in respect of what they said was “repetitive misconduct” and “anti-national activities”.

Sivanandan, who is researching marginalised tea plantation workers in Kerala for his doctorate in the School of Development Studies, hails from Kalpetta in Wayanad in the southern state of Kerala, had joined a protest march in Delhi in January this year against government policies regarded as “anti-student”.

The Parliament March organised by the United Students of India, a coalition of 16 student groups opposing the government’s National Education Policy (NEP), rallied under the slogan “Save Education, Reject NEP, Save India, Reject BJP”. They were referring to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Freedoms and rights

Sivanandan has denied all the charges. He told University World News: “I have participated in peaceful protests and that cannot be called an anti-India protest. We have every right to protest against the policies of the government. It was not against the nation; we protested against the policies.”

He said in general there had been an erosion of media freedom, the right to dissent and the right to free expression in the 10 years since the present government came to power.

“We are not allowed to express our thoughts, and everything is considered anti-national,” said Sivanandan.

“We opposed the National Education Policy because it is reducing public funding and leading to a hike in fees which will make education difficult for vulnerable communities, and we wanted the government to make changes. It is our democratic right to protest against those policies which we consider anti-public,” he added.

Calling the two-year suspension a “harsh penalty” which disproportionately impacts the academic journey of a student, in a statement the TISS student union (SU) accused the institution of “straying from its core mission of fostering critical thinking by succumbing to contemporary political pressure”.

The SU cast doubt on the transparency of the decision-making process which resulted in the suspension of Sivanandan, saying the union had not been consulted and was not kept in the loop by the authorities.

Students also questioned the timing of the suspension which coincides with the ongoing national elections which began on 19 April.
Sivanandan would not comment on the timing of his suspension.

Controversial documentaries and speakers

Among the accusations against him, Sivanandan faces allegations of screening a banned BBC documentary on the TISS campus, as well as arranging the Bhagat Singh Memorial Lecture, named after an iconic Indian independence freedom fighter.

Sivanandan is accused of extending invitations to ‘controversial’ guest speakers for the annual lecture held in February. This is seen as a reference to activist Bezwada Wilson, a campaigner against manual scavenging and caste atrocities, and a critic of the government. Wilson spoke on the role of students and the public at large in preserving constitutional values with regard to human rights in India.

The two-part BBC documentary. India: The Modi Question, released last year, examines Modi’s role when violence took place in his home state of Gujarat in 2002 at a time when he was the state’s chief minister. A storm on university campuses developed when student groups tried to air the documentary after it was banned by the federal government.

Sivanandan was also accused of urging students to watch Ram Ke Naam (In the name of God), a national award-winning 1992 documentary which delves into the campaign by right-wing Hindu cultural organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to demolish the Babri Mosque and build a temple to Hindu deity Ram in its place in Ayodhya.

The documentary sparked controversy because of its portrayal of the VHP as a right-wing movement linked to the campaign for a temple dedicated to Ram. The government has described the film as “propaganda”.

Sivanandan previously served as the general secretary of the Progressive Students’ Forum (PSF). Presently, he is a member of the central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the umbrella body of the PSF. Additionally, he serves as the joint secretary of the SFI Maharashtra State Committee.

A PSF statement released on 19 April said with the penalties imposed on Sivanandan, the TISS administration was “actually throttling all opposition to the BJP government”. It added that “the autocratic measures taken by the TISS administration [would] demoralise marginalised students seeking to pursue higher studies in publicly funded institutions”.

A ‘brilliant student’

PSF said Sivanandan has “defended student rights on campus time and again and in addition to his activism is also a brilliant student and was awarded the National Fellowship for Scheduled Castes by the Ministry of Social Justice, Government of India, for his remarkable performance in the UGC-NET examination”, a national eligibility test under the University Grants Commission.

In a “show-cause” notice – a request to explain actions before disciplinary moves are taken — issued on 7 March, TISS said Sivanandan misrepresented the identity of the institute during the Parliament March under the banner of PSF-TISS. According to the notice, PSF is not an officially recognised student body of the institute. Therefore, using this name conveyed a “misleading impression” of the Ministry of Education-funded institute.

TISS feared his views would be seen as the views of the institute, thereby bringing it into disrepute.

The notice also said Sivanandan had a “track record” of conducting unauthorised events and demonstrations under the PSF-TISS banner. It said Sivanandan shifted his attention away from studies and towards events, protests and other activities influenced by personal political ambitions. Despite receiving several verbal and written warnings, he failed to comply with them.

Sivanandan responded by arguing that he was a recipient of a national fellowship and had qualified in the entrance exams. Therefore, it was unjust to say he had no interest in his studies. Nonetheless, he was told to explain his participation in the march along with other activities on the Mumbai campus.

Subsequently, a detailed investigation was conducted by an Empowered Committee constituted by TISS, and the decision to suspend the student was based on the committee recommendation of a two-year suspension and a bar on the student’s entry to all TISS campuses. In addition to Mumbai, campuses are located in Tuljapur, in Maharashtra state; Hyderabad in the southern state of Karnataka; and Guwahati in Assam.

The committee submitted its report to the institute administration on 17 April and the suspension order was issued the next day.

Sivanandan noted parallels between his circumstances and those of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student and PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, who died by suicide on 17 January 2016.

Vemula had faced similar disciplinary actions for activism and was suspended. Vemula’s fellowship was stopped after he raised student issues under the banner of the Ambedkar Students’ Association, Sivanandan told media in Mumbai on 22 April.