Guilty should be punished: Kancha Iliah

University of Hyderabad should take action against those who are responsible for the death of Senthil Kumar, said scholar and activist Kancha Iliah. At a press meet in Hyderabad organized by Senthil Kumar Solidarity Committee, he said the University should give a much fairer amount as compensation for the grieved family, compared to Rs 5 lakh it has now agreed to provide.

“The Vice Chancellor should show the basic integrity of admitting that caste discrimination exists in the University, acknowledging the findings of the Pavrala Committee. The Committee report clearly points out the lack of transparency in the regulations of School of Physics. It is unfortunate that he made a public statement that Senthil's suicide had nothing to do with caste discrimination and that the university will not take any action against anybody for this suicide”, Iliah said.

“While institutions like EFLU has already announced that 27 per cent reservation for OBCs would be implemented right away, the VC of University of Hyderabad has said recently that it would implement only 5 per cent reservation for OBCs this year. The University is functioning as a modern agrahara,” he added.

Noted scholar Susie Tharu said by denying the findings of the Committee, the Vice Chancellor has cheated the teaching fraternity as a whole.

Activist Gogu Shyamala, scholar K Satyanarayana, Adv K Balagopal, scientist Veena Shatrugna, Praveen (research scholar, UoH) also spoke at the meet.

Press meet on 07-05-2008

This is to inform all of you that Senthilkumar Solidarity Committee is organizing a press meet tomorrow to challenge the statements made by HCU VC that Senthil's suicide has nothing to do with caste discrimination and that the university will not take any action against anybody for this suicide. His statement distorts the findings of the Pavrala Committee report that he himself had commissioned. We wish to invite you all to attend this press meet.

Venue: Press Club, Basheer Bagh
Time: 11.00 AM

The Solidarity Committee has invited the following academicians and pubic intellectuals to speak on this issue:

Kancha Ilaiah
P.L.Vishveshwara Rao
Susie Tharu
Gogu Shyamala
Muthaiah
Veena Shatrugna
K.Balagopal
Rama Melkote
K.Satyanarayana
K.G.Kannabiran
Bojja Tarakam

A related blog

http://out-caste.blogspot.com/2008/03/death-of-dalit-student-in-hcu_07.html

Enquiry committee absolves University of caste discrimination

The committee set up by the University of Hyderabad to enquire about the death of Senthil, says in its report that many ‘discrepancies and ambiguities’ had crept into the assessment of students in the Department of Physics since 2006, and that Dalit students, in particular, were victims of these discrepancies which in turn led the them to believe that the department was ‘casteist.’
The report, in effect, refuses to admit the discriminatory practices against Dalits in the campus, by saying that the "discrepancies" that have crept into the evaluations have "led the Dalit students to believe that the department is casteist."

The link to a report in The Times of India, Hyderabad, 03/05/08
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JSC8yMDA4LzA1LzAzI0FyMDA1MDA=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

or

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JSC8yMDA4LzA1LzAzI0FyMDA1MDA=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

Future plan of action

The team from Anveshi Research Centre, Hyderabad, after visiting the campus of University of Hyderabad recently, has suggested a number of initiatives, including:

1. forming a Senthilkumar Solidarity Committee comprising of major academics in the city and dalit and other student organisations.

2. preparing a detailed note on what actually happened (our reading of the situation) and what the issues are. Along with signatures, this, as a letter should be sent to: Arjun Singh (HRD Minister), Thorat, Karunanidhi, YSR. The request would be to the HRD Minister and UGC to constitute an enquiry committee; partiularly since the internal report actually makes the School of Physics culpable.
Also this could be sent, as a write up, to the EPW. The immediate demands should be compensation for senthil's family, action on the dean of the school, and at a different levels mechanisms to make the university and the schools more accountable and democratic.

3. Circulating the report and put it on as many websites as possible.

4. For this note, it may be necessary to meet some faculty, students and non-teaching staff of HCU. We need to plan this depending on the availability of people. In any case, we will have a rough structure of the letter ready in two-three days.