Caste Injustice in JNU

[Ranjit Ranjit]

COMMENTARY
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JUNE 26, 2010 vol xlv nos 26 & 27
27
Caste Injustice in
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Santhosh S, Joshil K Abraham

Be it in the implementation of a University Grants Commission guideline on reservation for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes in faculty positions, or in the matter of providing justice to student victims of caste prejudice and violence, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) administration has shown a regressive attitude that belies its progressive image.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, is considered to be one of the most progressive campuses in India and a bastion of radical politics. Given its iconic status (should we call it the brand value), other institutions of higher education often try to emulate it. Yet, a closer look at the functioning of JNU shows us that it is no better than most conservative
campuses in the country. A case in point is the implementation of reservations
both in faculty appointments and in student admissions. UGC GuidelinesFollowing the “UGC Guidelines for Strict Implementation of Reservation Policy”, the Executive Committee (EC) of the JNU decided in 2007 to implement reservation
for the scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) at the level of associate
professors and professors and reservation
for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) at the level of assistant professors. Yet, within two years, the JNU administration found ways of subverting its own 2007 decision. In 2009, the JNU advertised for 149 faculty positions. The anti-reservation
lobby in the campus got active and the
selection process was virtually frozen. There were student demonstrations, cutting
across the political spectrum from far left to the far right, poster campaigns, and pamphleteering in favour of the implementation
of reservation along the lines of the UGC guidelines. The JNU Teachers Association also took a position in favour of implementing reservations. But the JNU EC meeting convened in April 2010, as a way of delaying – if not derailing
– the implementation of reservations, chose to seek further legal advice from the solicitor general of India – a suggestion
which originated from the vice chancellor
himself.
The arguments of the anti-reservation
lobby in the JNU merit attention. In a letter
sent to the JNU Executive Council in November 2009, 30 faculty members claimed:
Considering that this step [implementing Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes reservations above the level of Assistant Professors] has very serious implications for the long term academic development of this premier University, the EC should reconsider its decision…
This alarmist claim has received its endorsement
from others too. In a note submitted
to the vice chancellor of JNU, the former vice chancellors and emeritus professors
such as Y K Alagh, T K Oommen and Bipin Chandra, argued,
If steps are taken which prevent it [JNU] from remaining one of the premier centres of excellence (which is what we fear will happen by limiting, through reservation, the scope for selecting the best faculty at the Senior Professor and Associate Professor
levels) the chief victim will be the disadvantaged
sections of Indian society. If JNU declines, the well to do will move to foreign and private universities, and the disadvantaged will no longer be able to get world class education which JNU has been so proud to offer them so far.
The argument that the “disadvantaged sections of India” will suffer if the “well-to-
do”
take flight to foreign and private universities – an argument which uncreatively
mimics the Gandhian idea of trusteeship
– is both specious and dubious and does not stand scrutiny.
There is more at stake here. The terms “disadvantaged sections” and “well-to-
do”
are vague enough not to refer to their caste connotations. It does not need much imagination to understand that the lower castes and the dalits predominantly constitute
the “disadvantaged”; and the upper castes, the “well-to-
do”.
While the luminaries
thus deny the validity of caste as a source of power and lack of it, caste does return with a vengeance. The flip side of their argument is that if there is any source of emancipation for the lower castes, it can come only from the upper castes. If the upper castes flee abroad – as they have been always doing – lower castes will be eternally trapped in a state of intellectual misery. Given the claim that the “well-to-
do”
are the source of “world class education”, the only knowledge
that needs to be transmitted to the lower castes is that of the upper castes.
The authors thank M S S Pandian for his inputs in writing this piece.Santhosh S (ssanth...@gmail.com) is visiting faculty at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Joshil K Abraham (joshil...@gmail.com) is at the Ambedkar Institute of Technology.
COMMENTARY
JUNE 26, 2010 vol xlv nos 26 & 27 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
28
Thus, the argument forbids the entry of lower caste knowledge forms into the pristine
domains of higher education. It can only be a claim to monopoly.
It may be instructive here to take a look at the report of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). In the course of the report, U R Ananthamurthy, eminent
littérateur, notes,
When we had the first meeting of the CABE, a retired director of IIT said something, which was very important. He said that when he was the director, many of the
students who came to do IIT were from common schools, that they had a variety of talents in IIT, but now the talent coming into IIT had dropped. They are all from the upper
classes, go to private English medium schools and they know how to pass these exams,
because they are trained to pass these exams by private tuition homes from class I. They come to IIT and he said the IIT quality has suffered because they were not drawing from the whole mass of people.
Though Ananthamurthy’s account does not openly talk of caste, it is a statement about how the heterogeneity of knowledge
and experiential realities are essential
for the future dynamics of any institution
of higher education. What the luminaries
of anti-reservation
are trying to do is to block any possibility of such diversity in the JNU campus.
Stark NumbersThe anxiety of the luminaries is not the result
of JNU implementing earlier reservation
policies according to the rule book. The information obtained through an RTI filed by P Ambedkar, an MPhil student of JNU, reveals that out of the 486 faculty members in JNU, only 23 of them got appointments
through SC/ST quota. Though the constitutional authorities of India guarantee 15% reservation for the SCs and 7.5% for the STs, only 3.29% of the JNU faculty are from SCs and 1.44% are from the STs. This is so after 27 years of implementing
SC/ST reservation in the JNU.
In this context, it is important to have a critical look at the remarks on the question
of reservation made by Y K Alagh, the former vice chancellor of JNU. In an interview
published in the Outlook magazine, Alagh claims, “JNU was once rated among the top 100 universities in the world. There is a minimal standard that needs to be followed if the university aspires to be a world-class
one.” Given the way reservations
for the SCs and STs were being implemented
in JNU, the decline of JNU cannot be attributed to influx of SCs and STs into the faculty. The responsibility lies elsewhere.
It is the entrenched upper caste presence in the JNU faculty, with their notions
of minimal standards, which is responsible
for such a decline.
JNU is also following deliberate admission
policies as a way of blocking the entry of OBC students into the institution. The Supreme Court directive of 14 October 2008, unambiguously directs educational institutions to ensure that the cut-off
marks for an OBC candidate should be 10 marks less that the general cut-off
of the university. However, contrary to the Supreme
Court directive, JNU has come out with its own criteria for the admission of OBC students. The late K Balagopal, in an article published
in EPW (24 October 2009) illustrates the absurdity of the JNU criteria thus:
A committee of five teachers concluded that what the Supreme Court meant when it spoke of relaxation of not more than 10 in the cut-off
marks was that the marks obtained
by an OBC candidate must be within 10 marks of the least marks obtained by those who have qualified in the general category for the OBC candidate to be eligible
for selection! Social scientists for some time now have been speaking much of the legitimacy of diverse “readings” of “texts” but one does hope that in the JNU they have not carried
it to misreading of plain English.
Thus, the standard of an OBC category students’ entry is determined by the standard set by an open category student.
The consequences of the JNU admission criteria for the OBC students are evident from the admission data for the academic year 2009-10.
For instance, in the Centre of Economic Studies and Planning at the School of Social Sciences, the total seats offered
at the MA level was 123 of which 22 seats were reserved for OBC candidates. But the actual seats awarded to the OBC students
was just three due to the present cut-off
system. In the Centre for Historical Studies in the same school, 12 out of 65 seats were reserved for OBC candidates, but only one OBC student was selected.
In the university as a whole, 60 seats were allotted at the MA level for the OBC students, but only 10 were selected. Out of 122 seats reserved for the OBC candidates at the MA and MPhil levels, only 33 got admission in various centers of the university.
The remaining 89 seats reserved for the OBC candidates were converted into general category seats. The consequences of all this has been well captured once again by Balagopal: “The result is that the upper castes who earlier had much of
the 100% to themselves now have more than 100%”.
Caste PrejudiceThe institutionalised casteism of the JNU administration is best illustrated by the case of Amritashva Kamal. In 2006,
Amritashva Kamal’s brother, Saurabh Kamal, a dalit student of the JNU, was constantly humiliated and harassed by a set of upper caste students led by Mahindra
Kumar Chauhan, a former student of the university living unauthorised in Chandrabhaga Hostel in the JNU premises.
When Amritashva Kamal intervened on his brother’s behalf, Chauhan and his gang verbally abused both the brothers, badly beat them up, and dragged them along from Chandrabhaga Hostel to the nearby Lohit Hostel. It was the timely intervention
of some fellow students and the security staff that saved them.
Following an enquiry committee findings,
JNU was declared out of bounds for Chauhan. Three other students – friends of Chauhan – were rusticated for four semesters
and three of them were fined. The story, however, did not end there. Almost a year later, the chief proctor of the JNU, with the approval of the vice chancellor, declared the whole of the JNU campus out of bounds for Amritashva Kamal and debarred
him from taking admission in any programme of study in the JNU in future.
Amritashva Kamal had already applied for admission in the JNU and topped the merit list for the MPhil Programme in European
Studies and the Russian and Central Asian Studies centres. The office order of the chief proctor prevented him from appearing for the viva voce examination
for admission. His appeals to the vice chancellor, the chief proctor, and the head of the equal opportunity office to allow
him provisionally to appear for the viva voce examination, failed to move the JNU administration.
As a last resort, Amritashva Kamal sought justice in the Delhi High Court. In
COMMENTARY
Economic & Political Weekly EPW JUNE 26, 2010 vol xlv nos 26 & 27 29
his judgment pronounced on 28 November
2007, justice S Ravindra Bhat noted
…I cannot help in commenting on the utterly
indefensible conduct of the University which show it in poor light. Conceived as a premier institution of higher learning with an international reputation, the defence put forth, by it, about futility of an enquiry against someone likely to be irreversibly prejudiced by its action, or even deny information
to him of its actions, is disquieting
at this point of time. Such a stand perhaps
would have been considered proper in
medieval times where the writ of a monarch could run unquestioned and his authority, accountable to none. That Vice Chancellor of the University has chosen to support such a stand and apparently ‘applied his mind’ is alarming to say the least.
Justice Bhat continued:
Sadly, the stark reality of caste prejudice has been highlighted in this case. There is no more justice where the victim and the oppressor are treated alike. As where the lion and the lamb are afforded the same treatment. That JNU has done so, betrays its callousness…
He advised the university to admit Amritashva
Kamal and ordered it to pay him within two weeks Rs 25,000 as cost of the proceedings.
Incredibly – as a pointer to its attitude on caste – the JNU administration choose to challenge the judgment in the higher court and Amritashva Kamal is yet to find a place in the university.
Panchayat Participation in Adult Literacy Programmes
Tanu Shikha Arya
The Saakshar Bharat Mission aims at 80% adult literacy and is to be implemented by gram panchayats. However, not only are these local bodies already heavily burdened with a multitude of roles and responsibilities, it is also a fallacy to presume that their members are adult literacy experts. While adult literacy is a non-formal
exercise, the members of the committees to be constituted under this mission are to be drawn from the formal education system. These factors are bound to affect the functioning of this much needed scheme.
On International Literacy Day, 8 September 2009, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh launched the Saakshar Bharat scheme of the National
Literacy Mission Authority (NLMA). The Saakshar Bharat Mission (SBM) aims at 80% literacy1 and reduction of regional, social and gender disparities in literacy rates by extending the coverage of the programme
to the 15+ age group. The Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Kapil
Sibal announced in 2009 that “We aim to bring the country’s literacy level to 80% by 2017”.2 The underlying assumption
is that only the achievement of adult literacy can help India to meet the Education
For All (EFA) goals within the next five-year
plan. The Saakshar Bharat scheme attempts
to cover seven crore non-literate
adults, of whom six crore are women. Since illiteracy is far more widespread
in the rural areas, the programme will concentrate on these areas, especially on the districts having low (i e, 50% and below) female literacy rates. “Literate India”
is the new slogan of the programme which envisages fund flows of Rs 6,000 crore in 365 low literacy districts located in 28 states/union territories of the country.
The broader objective of this refurbished
adult literacy programme is to create
a “knowledge society”.
The programme will run in active participation
with the state governments unlike
in the past when it was run directly by the centre through different agencies at the district level. At the same meeting in 2009, Kapil Sibal said: “We are structurally changing the mission and adopting new strategies. We have decided to implement the new scheme with the help of panchayati
raj institutions.” In compliance with the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, panchayati
raj institutions (PRIs) will be the fulcrum of adult literacy and skill development
programmes as documented in the guidebook for gram panchayats.3 Therefore,
the implementation of this programme
has been entrusted to gram panchayats
at the grass roots level and other PRIs at the district and sub-district
levels. Nearly 1,70,000 gram panchayats in about 365 districts will be covered in a phased manner. Each gram panchayat will constitute a panchayat lok shiksha samiti (people’s education committee) and similar types of samitis will be formed at the block and district levels to implement
the programme.
The samiti will consist of 17-20
members from various strata of the community. It will include the chairperson (head of the panchayat), vice-chairperson
(to be selected
from among the members; 50% of them have to be women), all members of the shiksha samiti of the gram panchayat, women elected representatives of the
panchayat, head master/teacher from the local
school chosen by the panchayat, representatives of the community (with proportionate representation from the scheduled castes (SCs)/scheduled tribes (STs)/minorities), mahila mandal/self-help
group (SHG) members, social activists,
opinion-makers
(government employees/
doctors, etc), a member secretary and secretariat
(two full time contractual employees, i e, senior prerak and prerak).
Tanu Shikha Arya (tanu...@yahoo.com) is with the Asian Development Research Institute, Ranchi, Jharkhand.