Student occupations spread across India
A student campaign has erupted in India over a decision to cut grants for research students.
Demonstrations spread from New Delhi to Gujarat, Mizoram, Hyderabad, Allahabad, Kolkata and Bihar as thousands of students protest the University Grants Commission (UGC) decision on 7 October to scrap the non-NET fellowship for research students entering central universities across India (NET stands for National Eligibility Test).
After negotiations with UGC officials on 21 October failed, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union led a march demanding the decision be overturned.
Protesters used hashtags #OccupyUGC and #SaveNonNetFellowship to build the campaign and to network with the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa. Students at the Film and Television Institute of India pledged their support after ending their own 140-day strike against the appointment of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Gajendra Chauhan as president of the FTII Society. The Delhi University Teachers’ Association expressed “solidarity with all students … across the country protesting this UGC decision”.
The fellowship provides research scholarships worth 5,000 to 8,000 rupees per month for masters and PhD students enrolling at select institutions but who are ineligible for merit-based fellowships. The UGC claims that awarding both fellowships leads to “double standards” because students are receiving financial aid without merit. This glosses over a sinister agenda.
The BJP-led government intends to commercialise its higher education sector ahead of the World Trade Organisation conference in Nairobi in December. It hopes to ratify the General Agreement on Trade in Services framework, which will allow unrestricted entry of foreign private investors and corporate partners, further corporatising education.
The All India Student Association (AISA) says that scrapping the scheme “is another step in [the] BJP-led central government’s series of moves to … restructure higher education to make it inaccessible”. Seventy percent of existing fellowships pay for accommodation. Monthly costs for students living off campus in Delhi, Mumbai or Hyderabad are double the value of the fellowship. Basic costs associated with research, such as books, equipment and fieldwork, are borne by families.
The scheme is currently a lifeline for 35,000 students across India. AISA Delhi branch secretary Ashutosh Kumar told Indian news website Scroll.in: “If this [scheme] is discontinued … [the] vast majority of the country’s students [cannot] engage in research”. Om Prasad, AISA organiser and PhD candidate in history at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Red Flag: “More working class children will get excluded from the education system”.
Students are demanding that the UGC increase the value of the fellowship and extend it to state universities.
On 2 November, students in Delhi, Allahabad, Pune, Varanasi, Patna and other cities rallied as part of a national protest day against the newly appointed Review Committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development.
Akbar Chawdhary, an AISA activist currently pursuing his PhD in philosophy at JNU, pointed out to Red Flag that the review is just cover for “the UGC’s decision to discontinue the fellowship for a large number of students”.
In Kolkata, students were lathi (baton)- charged, and 40 activists have since been detained.
On 23 and 27 October, police attacked thousands of protesters at UGC offices. Fifteen students were hospitalised. Thirty-three were detained, but students, teachers and intellectuals gathered at Kamla Market Police Station to pressure authorities to release them, which they did.
Despite police intimidation, occupations in front of the UGC offices involve hundreds and sometimes up to a thousand protesters at any time. They are electric, with chanting and singing, teach-ins and speeches. UGC chairman Ved Prakash’s no-show at Jamia Millia Islamia University’s foundation day celebrations vindicates the efforts of the #OccupyUGC student protesters, who had planned to disrupt his speech.
Their actions shine a light on what it takes to resist attacks on our universities.
