The administration of Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) has asked a final year undergraduate student who drew graffiti on the walls of the varsity to get counselling for 'anger management. The university has discontinued his registration for the winter semester of 2021. Priyansh Maurya, a BA History student, has been asked to pay a fine of Rs 39,442 in order to be allowed to return to the university. The student must also submit a report verified by the Centre of Psychotherapy and Clinical Research, School of Human Studies and will then be eligible to rejoin the university for the monsoon 2021 semester.
While one graffiti sought the university to restart offline classes, the other one accused the right-wing of being right-leaning.
A final year student, Priyansh says that he is worried that he may not get to write his final semester examination this year, and has no means to pay the fine. It all began on March 9, when the SFI unit of AUD conducted a protest, asking the administration to reopen the university and start offline classes. This was based on a survey that they had conducted previously, where a lot of students have said that they do not have the resources or are not in the right state of mind to attend online lectures. As part of the protest, Priyansh and a few others had written slogans and painted graffiti on the university walls. This is a violation of the 'AUD's Code of Discipline of the Student', according to the administration.
"I did not know this. When I joined the university in 2018, this was not the norm. But they had repainted the walls and had implemented rules against graffiti and writing on walls," says Priyansh. He was debarred a month after the incident, on April 8. The proctor's email states that the student had admitted to 'defacing the walls' at an interaction on March 23. "They had also identified me based on CCTV footage. The university has now installed more CCTV cameras," he says.
Priyansh also added that he did not make graffiti out of anger. "I made graffiti because I wanted to reclaim AUD walls again after the whitewash," he said.
