Fwd: [iitkcf] Petition and alumni letter
Vivek Mehta
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IITK should withdraw eviction notice to Dhobi community
Dear fellow alumnae/alumni,
Greetings!
We would like you to recall your IIT days. Remember the Dhobis in your halls when they came to your rooms, gathered your dirty clothes, marked them with your room numbers, hauled them on their bicycles and after a couple of days returned with your lovely clothes fully washed, dried and pressed! Some of us used to interact with them, in fact we are sure that some of them must have become your friends as much as is possible given the context. They were unforgettable faces. Some of us have met them again on our IITK visits or reunions at the Visitor’s Hostel. Now as you prepare for your summer plans, those Dhobis have been asked to leave the campus by the administration of our alma mater against the wishes of majority of the students!
Seventeen Dhobi families who were serving the IITK community for the last 57 years have been given an eviction notice on 28th March, 2018. Should it come into action, they will be rendered homeless from 28th April, 2018.
As some of you know, it was the founding Director of IIT Kanpur, Prof. P. K. Kelkar who requested these families to come and serve the Institute community. In return they were promised residential quarters for their families and appropriate work spaces to wash and dry clothes. The subsequent generations of these families continued serving the whole campus community with their hard labor. But now our alma mater has decided to break those promises and do away with any moral or ethical responsibilities.
The Institute in the eviction notice argues that they need their
place to expand the academic area [1], however we refer you to a
presentation made by a student on the working and living conditions
of the Dhobis where the map area of the Dhobi ghat has been shown:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YxierQ1pcA45CSnFu3vbJBq2rayLNDSR/view
Their living and working area has been so tiny in the map that the Institute can hardly build anything substantial in that area and can easily utilize other areas for the academic or hostel purposes.
The Institute has also made other arguments in support of the eviction notice. We would like you to read our letter to the new Director for our concerns and rebuttal to these arguments [2].
At this point we need your vital support so that the Institute withdraws the eviction notice immediately. We feel that these Dhobi families are an important part of the whole community and it will be morally wrong to uproot them from their existing dwellings and quarters. We urge you to sign our petition to the Director and also write letters to IITK administration so that these families can continue to live in the campus with dignity and secure livelihood. Below you will find a sample letter which you can edit as you see fit and then send the letter to the Director (dire...@iitk.ac.in). We also request you to share your letter with us at citizensf...@gmail.com .
Link to petition: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/iitk-should-withdraw-eviction-notice-to-dhobi/
Sincerely,
Members, IIT Kanpur Citizens Forum
https://sites.google.com/site/iitkcfdevelopment/
1. Link to the eviction notice: https://goo.gl/qcMMCR
2. IITK CF letter to our Director: https://goo.gl/fPZWrA
Sample letter to the Director, IIT Kanpur
Email: dire...@iitk.ac.in
Sub: Immediately withdraw the eviction notice to Dhobis
Dear Prof Abhay Karandikar,
Director, IIT Kanpur
It has been brought to our notice that the Dhobi families in the campus have been served with an eviction notice. We believe that Dhobi families were promised proper accommodation when the Institute was being founded. We understand that they have been doing their work diligently and serving more than 3500 students and faculty at affordable rates. They are indispensable to the Institute community and it will be completely immoral to evict them after they have served us for the last 57 years.
We request you to please withdraw the eviction notice immediately and make sure that they can continue living in the campus without any threats of eviction.
Regards,
XYZ