Student groups in India are gearing up for a prolonged struggle against what they see as the government’s efforts to undermine democratic spaces within educational institutions in the country. Their resolve was renewed following a court verdict last week that upheld the punitive measures against Ramadas Prini Sivanandan, a dalit PhD scholar at the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).
Ramadas was targeted by the university administration for his activism in the Progressive Student Forum (PSF). PSF is a left-leaning student group critical of the ultra-right-wing agendas and policies of India’s central government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In April of last year, the TISS administration ordered Ramadas be suspended for two years. The university administration cited his participation in the call for a united march against the education policies of the government in January 2024 as well as his social media posts encouraging people to watch Ram ke Naam, a 1992 documentary about the anti-Muslim politics of BJP.
The 2024 march to parliament was organized by 16 different student organizations to raise their opposition against the BJP government’s changes to the country’s education policy. In 2020, the government introduced the National Education Policy (NEP), which proposes massive changes in the country’s education system with greater emphasis on privatization and commercialization. The policy also undermines transparency, accountability, and India’s federal character according to some opposition parties.
Most of the student organizations and several political parties, including the left, are opposed to the NEP and have been demanding its withdrawal.
Ram ke Naam, directed by Anand Patwardhan, documents the widespread violence caused by the anti-Babri Mosque agitation led by the BJP and its affiliates in the 1990s. It is an award-winning documentary which is publicly available and has been screened numerous times at various state and non-state events in the last three decades including by the state broadcaster Doordarshan. However, the BJP and its affiliates have termed it propaganda.
TISS had justified the suspension of Ramadas claiming his political activism was “influenced by personal political agenda” and terming those activities as “anti-national”.
Court upholds suspension, raising concerns over academic freedom
Ramadas had approached Bombay High court against what he called his unlawful suspension. However, on March 12, ten months after the petition was filed, the court dismissed it. The court justified TISS’ decision claiming that Ramadas’ participation in the anti-government march misled people to believe that the position of his organization (PSF) was the position of his university, claiming the case has nothing to do with “freedom of expression or discrimination.”
The court also observed that since Ramadas was a recipient of a central government-sponsored fellowship his political activities are subject to the scrutiny by the administration.
Questioning the court’s observation, Ramadas recently told The Wire that “educational spaces that are meant to encourage critical thinking are suddenly punishing” students for questioning and raising their voices. He called it “unprecedented” and expressed his fear that it “will have much larger repercussions on the education system.”
Discriminatory and an assault on freedom
The Student Federation of India (SFI), a left student group of which Ramadas is a central executive committee member, issued a statement criticizing the court’s dismissal of Ramadas’ petition. Questioning the court’s basis for associating Ramadas’ political stand with that of the university, it says “if such an interpretation is institutionalized, it would mean that no student in any Indian university can hold an independent opinion that differs from the official stance of their administration, reducing campuses to mere propaganda machines of BJP.”
The court’s decision “raises significant concerns about the state of student’s rights, academic freedom, and democratic expression in Indian higher education” SFI said, hinting at relentless attacks on left and progressive student unions across the country under the Narendra Modi-led BJP government which has been in power since 2014.
“It implies that raising concerns about the government’s role in education and advocating for democratic and secular values can justify punitive action against students,” SFI says.
“At its core the actions of TISS reflect the BJP’s deep seated fear of student movements and any form of criticism. The relentless attacks on independent student thoughts, particularly targeting those from marginalized backgrounds, must be seen in this larger context and no student or individual should be punished for raising slogans against a particular party or government,” SFI asserts.
Political repression continues as students struggle for democracy
Student groups have complained that democratic spaces inside the TISS and several other major campuses across the country including Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) and JawaharLal Nehru University (JNU), have been curtailed by administrations that are working as agents of the BJP-led government.
At Hyderabad Central University (HCU), a dalit scholar, Rohith Vemula, was driven to commit suicide in 2016 because of consistent discrimination and harassment by the university administration.
At TISS, the student union elections have been suspended since last year. The administration has also unsuccessfully tried to ban PSF.
In an interview for the Wire, Ramadas claimed that “in the past, there was at least a pretense of the institute being a democratic space. But in recent years, no student-led events are permitted here.” He accused the TISS administration of toeing the line of the BJP led government and terming all contrary opinions as “anti-national”.
“The institutional attack and the lack of judicial support for a student who expresses his political view is not an isolated incident, rather a reflection of the wider attack the student community in India faces under the BJP-RSS regime,” said the JNU Student Union (JNUSU) in a solidarity statement on Monday.
Ashok Dhawle, polit bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPIM, condemned the high court’s decision calling it “deplorable”. “TISS and many other premier educational bodies have been taken over by the RSS by appointing its people to the helm,” he said, adding that such acts will be resisted.
