Almost two years after the Rohit Vemula protests rocked the University of Hyderabad campus, it seems like another huge protest is likely to break out soon. Ironically, the incidents are also eerily similar-Vemula and his friends were also suspended from their hostels, the same way that the 10 students have been suspended two days ago.
Whether or not the protests will be on a large scale is still a question but the administration seems to have already assumed that the protests could go out of hand which is why they have now allowed police vans to enter the campus. The night of the incident too, the hostel wardens summoned the police despite the matter needing no such intervention.
"Police vans are posted outside our gates, equipped with batons and bullets proof vests, ready for any resistance by the students whose only weapon is their education," the students wrote in a statement. The statement also goes on to talk about how the administration has forsaken its responsibility and has made it a regular fare to suspend its students at the slightest hint of provocation.
"The government sees it fit to curtail any sign of dissent simply by marking our names off the register. But what is it that is it that we are doing that is so threatening to the administration," the statement questions. Ever since the Rohit Vemula protests, students at HCU have also been barred from visiting various spaces on campus, "This is not the University we entered, it is not the education we signed up for," the students say. "For us, education meant differentiating right from wrong, critic the consolidation of power in a few hands, create safe spaces where individuals foster learning, friendship and even love. Today, education has come to mean imprisonment, threats and discouragement from any kind of critical engagement," the statement concludes.
Courtesy: Intaj Ali/Facebook
Another statement issued by the SFI party in HCU reveals the haste with which the administration has handled the entire issue, calling a meeting with the "accused" students on a Saturday with the UGC- NET exam was the next day. On the day of the exam which was a Sunday, the students were again served notices to appear for a meeting on Monday.
The ten students include those who actively participate in politics on campus and protest against injustices on campus. "Last year, Rohit Vemula was handed such a letter along with four other students, a letter with no less than an executioner's blow," the students said in their letter. The brutal lathi charge on BHU students protesting draconian hostel rules a week ago, let's hope the HCU students don't have to suffer the same fate it would be the second time in less than two years.
