This month witnessed a spate of suicides at institutions of higher\nlearning: IIT\nMadras<\/a>, IIT\nBombay<\/a>, NIT\nKozhikode<\/a>, and IIIT\nIdupulapaya<\/a>, in addition to another\nattempted suicide<\/a> at IIT Madras. This is part of a worsening trend:\nbetween 2014\u20132021, more than 120\nsuicides<\/a> have taken place at the IITs, IIMs, and Central\nUniversities, and more than half of these were committed by students\nbelonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward\nClasses. In response to the suicide of Darshan Solanki, a first-year\nundergraduate at IIT Bombay, the People\u2019s Union for Civil Liberties\n(PUCL) has released a statement<\/a>\nemphasising the institutionalised nature of caste discrimination at the\nIITs. The suicide of Stephen Sunny, a postgraduate student at IIT Madras\nsparked protests that underscored the discrimination that scholars from\ndisadvantaged communities face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A new\nreport<\/a> by the V-Dem Institute finds that India has less academic\nfreedom today than it did ten years ago, echoing findings<\/a>\nby Nandini Sundar and Gowhar Fazili a few years ago. We quote from their\nreport:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \u201cIn India, academic freedom started to decline in 2009 with a drop in\nuniversity autonomy followed by a sharp downturn in all indicators from\n2013. Around 2013, all aspects of academic freedom began to decline\nstrongly, reinforced with Narendra Modi\u2019s election as prime minister in\n2014. Campus integrity, institutional autonomy, and the freedom of\nacademic and cultural expression declined more strongly over the\nfollowing years than the freedom to reach and teach and the freedom of\nacademic exchange and dissemination\u2026 Moreover, the attacks on academic\nfreedom under Modi\u2019s Hindu nationalist government were also possible due\nto the absence of a legal framework to protect academic freedom. What\ndistinguishes India from other cases is notable pressure on the\ninstitutional dimensions of academic freedom \u2013 institutional autonomy\nand campus integrity \u2013 combined with constraints on academics\u2019 freedom\nof expression.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Delhi University (DU) saw protests<\/a>\nby faculty groups surrounding the issue of persistent delays in the\nformation of Governing Bodies in 28 colleges, as well as absorption of\nad hoc faculty members. Approximately half (!) of the faculty at DU are\nad hoc. Dr. Maya John, a historian at DU and trade union activist, emphasises<\/a>\nthat the recent appointment drives should be viewed critically, as the\nad hoc faculty now face the problem of large-scale displacement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe present celebratory din regarding permanent appointments seeks\nto divert attention away from the surgical displacement of a vast\nmajority of serving ad-hoc teachers, as well as the strategic\nadministrative move to remove ad-hoc positions altogether through the\nappointment of even more vulnerable contractual guest teachers to fresh\nteaching positions that are emerging.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Although immediately\nrescinded<\/a>, new regulations were proposed at JNU that would have\npenalised students engaged in \u201chunger strikes, dharnas, group bargaining\nand any other form of protest by blocking entrance or exit of any of the\nacademic or administrative complexes or disrupting movements of any\nmember of the university community.\u201d Similarly, students at the South\nAsian University have been sitting\nin protests<\/a> against the university administration\u2019s heavy-handed\nresponse to demands for a raise in their stipends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Differently-abled students at Banaras Hindu University are protesting<\/a>\nthe mishandling of a case of sexual harassment of a differently abled\nwoman student, and are demanding an audience with the Vice\nChancellor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the face of protests, a film festival at Ravenshaw University was\nallowed to proceed under the condition that the scheduled screening of\ntwo films be cancelled<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, the AcDR\nstatement<\/a> criticising the censorship of the BBC documentary\nIndia: The Modi Question<\/em> received wide coverage: see The\nWire<\/a>, Scroll.in<\/a>,\nThe\nHindu<\/a>, Telegraph\nIndia<\/a>, and GroundXero<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Suicides<\/p>\n This month witnessed a spate of suicides at institutions of higher learning: IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, NIT Kozhikode, and IIIT Idupulapaya, in addition to another attempted suicide at IIT Madras. This is part of a worsening trend: between 2014\u20132021, more than 120 suicides have taken place at the IITs, IIMs, and Central Universities, and more than half of these were committed by students belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes. In response to the suicide of Darshan Solanki, a first-year undergraduate at IIT Bombay, the People\u2019s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has released a statement emphasising the institutionalised nature of caste discrimination at the IITs. The suicide of Stephen Sunny, a postgraduate student at IIT Madras sparked protests that underscored the discrimination that scholars from disadvantaged communities face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17,9,27,23,26,25,20,18,24,22,19,28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97,"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/97"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acdr.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Declining Academic Freedom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Ad Hoc Faculty Protests<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Right To Protest<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Other Protests<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Coverage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n