Invitation | Panel Discussion | Higher Education in India | Session on May 10th, 2021
Savitribai intersectional Study Circle Nalsar
Dear All,
It is often a concern for marginalised students - Gaining access to higher educational institutions or living in them, is this all there is to dignified living? Leading lives that do not permit actualisation makes us question the foundation of these structures. Of these gates.
The question of this fictional gate becomes a reality, the more our identities are reduced and our agency denied.
Perhaps the best explanation for our predicament, would be that just as we existed outside the formal and Hindu structure of the village, being allowed access to it only in small measures, we belonged to the village but it never belonged to us.
We see a tendency in these spaces on learning about social justice(s), there is a theoretical and brahmanical engagement with the issue. It has parallely meant that our communities demanding equity are sidelined in a conversation that was meant for them. Our voices co-opted for what works in the scheme of brahmanical “growth and education” and cast aside otherwise. There is a politics of convenience that is played with the minds of the marginalised.
With these ideas, we speak to you as we hope you invite yourselves to the stories of our survival and fights as the Savitribai Intersectional Study Circle and NALSAR Minorities’ Forum present to you, the second panel discussion on “HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA.”
Session 2:
Gatekeeping of Academics from the Marginalized
Date and Time:
10th May 2021 at 3:00 p.m.
Session Link:
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Meeting number: 184 226 3777
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Speakers:
1.
Santa Khurai is a Manipuri Indigenous Nupi Maanbi (Transgender woman) from Manipur. She is a writer, poet, human rights defender and is a trailblazer in the history of indigenous trans movement in Manipur and other states of North East. Some of her remarkable writings are "My Father and Nupi Maanbi Thabal" in "The World That Belongs to Us" a South Asia queer anthology published by HarperCollins, Pheida a historical facts of the existence of unconventional gender and sexuality people in the erstwhile Manipuri society. Her translated book "The Yellow Sparrow" is an upcoming book on the collection of her memoirs being published by the speaking tiger.
2.
Aroh holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences and Humanities from Ambedkar University Delhi and are currently pursuing their Master’s degree from University of Göttingen, Germany.
3.
Raya Sarkar is a Dalit community organizer and lawyer based in San Francisco CA. They kick-started the #metoo movement in Indian academia and led a successful ballot measure campaign to raise taxes on the rich in San Francisco.
Moderator:
Sanjeev is a Dalit Adivasi queer person and a third year student of Law and Social Sciences at NALSAR University of Law.
Purpose of the Panel
Universities are centers of pedagogy that should have the mandate to work to give a direction and space for inclusiveness and emancipation from all forms of enslavement but instead have become a bastion for myriads of discriminations, exclusions and atrocities on the basis of Caste, Gender, and other parallel and intersectional structural segregations. This phenomenon has its roots in the conception of education as a privilege that is bestowed upon the upper spectrum of Manu’s Varna system. The very structure and functions of educational institutions have been to further these segregations even when their foundational principles are gleaned from Ambedkar’s notions of equality and liberty. This dangerous reality of deep seated casteist beliefs and behavior is manifested in multiple forms ranging from the very constitution of its members to what is considered as erudite of academia. Even in the so called most liberal and progressive educational spaces caste is discussed as concept alien to everyday reality and through the literature of savarna intellectuals and voices who neither have lived experience of caste based discrimination nor understand intricacies and subtleties of casteism.
It is evident by the empirical data available that representation of Dalit, and adivasis/indigenous in academia is meager if not nil running afoul of politics of presence and principles of equality. Moreover literature produced by the Dalit and Adivasi indigenous intellectuals is not considered as excellence with that of Brahiminaical academic standards and are dismissed citing not in consensus with the already produced knowledge which is predominantly Brahiminical and produced by savarnas. The mythology of rationality, meritocracy and academic standards are structured in such a way that they act as gatekeepers to keep away the people marginalised by caste, race and gender from entering Universities (academic spaces), which have become synonymous to Agraharas (a place for habitation and religious purposes which is exclusively granted for “Brahmins'' by Rulers in ancient times; Epitomizing casteist spaces). This non-representation of People from marginalized communities have immediate and mediated impact on academic spaces, state and civic society leading to caste murders in universities, homogenization of discourses on discriminations by the privileged groups, dilution of protectionist statist institutions, forced integrationist policies without acknowledging autonomy and substantial equality and ultimately leading to perpetuation of supremacist, casteist and fascist culture.
The very presence of professors from the marginalised social locations and literature produced by the same intellectuals will have a revolutionary change in the process of learning as the pedagogy of the oppressed and by the oppressed only has the impetus to build consciousness of dialect of discrimination and in making academic spaces egalitarian and education as emancipation. However, such a change is not permitted by the formal and informal structures of caste as this step would go against the very fabric of Brahminical knowledge discourses and privileges of those who are benefiting out of these structures. Hence, such dissent is silenced by gatekeeping of marginalized identities entering into universities, threats of expulsions, suspensions, discriminatory marking and promotions, social exclusion, suspension of financial aid and the like.
We hope to see familiar faces and new ones for our second panel on the matter of higher education in India!
Regards,
Savitribai Intersectional Study Circle and NALSAR Minorities Forum
NALSAR University of Law
Hyderabad
Poojitha Sirimalla
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