‘Varsities becoming war zones’

After days of political bickering over the suicide of a dalit scholar at Hyderabad Central University, a group of scholars on Saturday said institutions of learning have become war zones in the last 10 to 15 years and poor students entering the campuses are seen as fodder in the ideological war of their mentors.

The group of 40 scholars said the death of Rohith Vemula had brought forth the rot which had set in these years and called for action to save the academia from the clutches of this new brand of academics in the university faculties.

“Act swiftly to save the Indian academia from the clutches of this new brand of academics in the university faculties and their peers in the higher academic governance of India. The people at the helm of affairs in the higher governing bodies of Indian academia have remained largely unchanged. These people in position of authority have continued to further vitiate the atmosphere in our institutions of higher learning,” they said in an open statement.

ICHR’s M.D. Srinivas, Madhu P. Kishwar of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, IIT-Chennai’s S. Karmalkar, Vipin Chaturvedi of the California University, Atal Bihari Vajpayi Hindi Vishwavidhyalaya V-C M.L. Chhipa, Makrand R. Paranjpe, JNU’s Aswhini Mohapatra, IIM-Bangalore’s R. Vaidyanathan and J.K. Bajaj of the Centre for Policy Studies are among the signatories.