Despite continuous efforts by the students of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) to demand reservation in campus hostels for students from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, their concerns are yet to be addressed.
Today, on August 14, the BHU wing of All India Students' Association (AISA) issued a statement in solidarity with the OBC students.
“Even after 32 years of implementation of Mandal commission in the country, OBC reservation is not being implemented in university hostels like BHU while EWS reservation which came in 2019 has been implemented. This shows the casteist and feudal mindset of the administration… Our demand is to ensure that reservation rules are followed in BHU as well as in the whole country and educational institutions should be made inclusive and democratised,” the statement read.
Recently, students of BHU also held a Twitter storm with hashtags like #OBCreservationinBHUhostel.
Umesh Yadav, a student at BHU, told EdexLive, “We are urging the administration to provide reservations for undergraduate (UG), postgraduate (PG) and PhD students from the OBC category. We are trying to raise this issue in a number of ways. We have carried out campaigns in the library and faculty rooms with our posters. We are raising awareness about Constitutional rights and asking students to speak up about the issue.”
Umesh added that the students are also planning a signature campaign to raise the issue.
In an RTI response provided by the university in November 2021, it was revealed that the university has received close to Rs 171 crore under the OBC grant and 4,187 hostel rooms have been constructed for the students of the OBC community. However, there is still no reservation for the OBC students.
The students also highlighted that a committee formed by the BHU administration had recommended 27 per cent reservation for OBC students in the hostels but it was not implemented. The committee was formed after the students submitted a memorandum demanding OBC reservation in February 2021 and again in December 2021.
Following this, in February 2022, the students also held a protest at the university’s central office.
