The SC/ST Joint Action Committee, University of Hyderabad, wishes to bring to your notice the gruesome death of a Dalit, Mr Senthil Kumar, a first year Ph.D research scholar in the School of Physics on Febraury 24. Mr Senthil Kumar was found dead in his hostel room and is stated to have committed suicide due to non-allotment of Supervisor and withdrawal of fellowship.
Mr Senthil Kumar hails from a very poor family and his parents have been surviving on pig rearing. He was a first generation educated person and he completed his MSc from American College, Madurai and Mphil from Pondicherry Central University. He joined University of Hyderabad as a Research Scholar in 2007 and failed in one of the subjects in the course work. He gave a supplementary examination and it appears that he feared that he may fail again in the supplementary exam and that his PhD registration may be terminated once for all. It was this fear that he would go back home without a PhD which seems to have been the reason for taking his life.
It has to be pointed out that it is only School of Physics in Sciences arbitrarily introducing course work in order to harass Dalit students. The School introduced course work in 2006, which incidentally coincides with the introduction of exclusive scholarships known as Rajiv Gandhi Fellowships given to SCST students. We believe that the extreme arbitrariness of admission and evaluation procedures including the allotment of Research Supervisors has led to this very gruesome incident. The School of Physics has always been a hostile place for students from belonging to rural and lower caste communities.
The SC/ST Joint Action Committee brought this incident to the notice of our Vice Chancellor and he has so far not adequately responded to the situation. Infact, despite several requests, he has avoided meeting the Dalit organisations on the campus. Our Vice Chancellor has been extremely insensitive to issues concerning SC/STs on the Campus. During his two year Vice Chacellorship, the University has been in the public attention for very controversial reasons including the alleged illegal allotment of land to a private party and a recent Central Bureau of Investigation raid on the University administration premises.
Though the University has constituted a committee to probe into the circumstantial details relating to Senthil's death, we think it has not taken the issue seriously because:
a. Firstly, as various Dalit bodies on the campus and Dalit leaders from outside the campus have alleged ill-treatment from the teaching fraternity at large, it is inappropriate to constitute a committee comprising of teachers from inside the university to probe into the death of Senthil.
b. Secondly, it is a medico-legal case; the committee is not adequately equipped to handle the case.
c. Therefore, the SC/ST Joint Action Committee strongly express displeasure regarding the terms of reference and constitution of the committee and demand that the University should invite a sitting judge to probe exclusively into the affairs of the School of Physics and fix responsibility along with the Principal Secretary , Ministry of Human Resources
The University of Hyderabad rusticated 10 Dalit students in 2002 and caused untold misery to their future. We had represented the matters regarding the organised suppression of SC/ST's by the University Authorities since very long time but unfortunately the University authorities never looked into the matter and were very casual in dealing with the harassment and discrimination against our community.
1 comment:
The incident is so very unfortunate! Being an alumnus of the University, I still relate with it. The incident should be probed by a competent body from outside the University. The 'uses and abuses' of the Course work done in the School of Physics alone, also should be taken into consideration while doing this.
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