Shivam Mogha A great churning of ideas is happening in the sites of the current farmers’ protest at the borders of Delhi, being dubbed by many as the largest and longest peaceful protest in the world. As part of looking into various aspects of these protests, we have tried to understand the history of …
Conceiving a New Public: Ambedkar on Universities
Asha Singh & Nidhin Donald Dr. B.R. Ambedkar conceptualizes education as a ‘vital need’ which helps us fight notions of ‘inescapable fate’ or ‘ascriptions of caste or religion’. He counted education as a socially inherited value which defines one’s access to power. Education was always a keyword, an indicator which he applied on issues of …
Govt. of India should send One Lakh SC ST youths abroad for Higher Education
Anshul Kumar Men sitting on the pinnacle of the palace “So, I went one day to Linlithgow and said, concerning the expense of education, “If you will not get angry, I want to ask a question. I am equal to fifty [high school] graduates, am I not?” He had to agree to that. Then …
Documenting Bahujan Musical Instruments
Dr. Chandraiah Gopani The book under review entitled ‘Mula Dhwani’ (Aboriginal Sound) is edited by Jayadhir Thirumal Rao and Guduru Manoja. This book was released in 2019, both in Telugu and English with the same title. In the absence of studies on Bahujan Musical Traditions, the book is a unique work in documenting more than …
Are IITs safe for Dalit Students?
The Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), IIT Bombay Aniket Ambhore, a student of electrical engineering, had fallen to his death from the sixth floor of hostel 13 on September 4, 2014. An SC student, he was alleged to have committed suicide. After his parents wrote to the IIT director, a three-member committee was set …
Casteism in City Colleges and Classrooms
Aarushi Punia It is a common myth perpetrated by upper caste faculty, students, politicians, and media that caste superiority and casteism is exercised amongst uneducated people in the villages, and not amongst the educated in urban and academic spaces. The myth of city colleges and classrooms being caste-free stems from the unidentifiability of the conventional …
Systematic Dismantling of Social Justice & Equity in Higher Education by the Modi Government
Dr. Magilan Karthikeyan In the Indian union of states, the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are considered the most socially and educationally disadvantaged groups among the other disadvantaged sections, namely other backward castes (OBCs) and religious minorities.1 Despite several policy interventions, the number of OBC/SC/ST/Minority students enrolled in higher education continues to remain …
End Casteism in IITs
The Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), IIT Bombay It is amidst desolate cries and the numbing daily reports of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic raging across the nation, that we all have witnessed a video recording of an online class for the Prep English Course (IITs Preparatory Course for SC/ST and …
Manifestation of Power Dynamics in Higher Educational Institutions during the Pandemic
Annesha Mukherjee, Satyaki Dasgupta and K Chandra Shekar The outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020 saw a number of reports highlighting the plight of students in the country because administrations of higher educational institutions asked them to vacate their hostels. In this light, we conducted a survey among students in September using Google …