Delhi: Deepa P Mohanan, a Dalit student, had to fight caste discrimination before completing her PhD. He won his fight with an 11-day hunger strike and set an example for thousands of Dalit students. He was harassed by the staff. He was not allowed to enter the university lab. Didn’t even get a chair. It had become so difficult for Deepa P Mohanan, a so-called lower caste, to complete her PhD. Many times the courage would break and I would like to leave. But he decided to fight. Deepa Mohanan is doing research on nanomedicine.
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Her struggle became an inspiring example for tens of thousands of Dalit students when she went on a hunger strike against the injustice meted out to her and rose only after promises of reform. Mohanan from Kottayam says, “I sincerely want to finish my PhD but I realized that I will not be able to complete the work until I expose the injustice done to me in front of everyone for years.” This month Mohanan’s 11-day long hunger strike ended when the president of the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of Mahatma Gandhi University was sacked over his complaints.The university has also set up a committee under the chairmanship of the vice-chancellor to work with Dalit students. Will investigate allegations of abuse and exploitation on campus. ‘Classrooms are terrible places’ India has a population of about 200 million Dalits who still have to fight for their basic rights. Jenny Rowena, Professor of English at Delhi University, says, “Caste harassment is common on university campuses. Classrooms have become a terrible place.” Rowena is working with a YouTube channel documenting the stories of oppression faced by Dalits and Other Backward Castes. She says that many students do not attend classes to avoid embarrassment and torture.
Data from the government’s higher educational institutions shows that only 14.7 per cent of the children of 18-23 years of age belonging to Dalit or Other Backward Castes, while they have 15 per cent reservation in many subjects. Mohanan was the only Dalit in her postgraduate batch of a hundred students, working on techniques for quick wound healing. She is the first person in her family to reach the university, raising her child without a life partner. “Really, I didn’t expect so much discrimination,” she says. Before going on hunger strike, Mohanan had complained to the authorities dozens of times. Even a legal complaint was filed. “It was said in the conversation that if a Dalit student was supported, it would affect the discipline of the institute,” she says. will do. Then I felt that I was lost.
But I decided to fight again.” Rose’s struggle student organization Bhim Army supported Mohanan’s fight. Anuraji PR, the national vice president of the organization, says that campus life is an everyday struggle for Dalit students. One student, on the condition of anonymity, said that many times students fail in assessments and many supervisors refuse to be our guides for postdoctoral studies. C Laxman, political scientist and national convener of the Dalit Interactive Collective, says that reservation has fueled discrimination. He says, “Students who come through reservation are considered ineligible by their classmates coming from urban areas.” In September, the University Grants Commission had written to all universities instructing them to strictly prohibit caste discrimination on campus, maintaining a complaint book and providing a website for students to lodge complaints, besides setting up a committee. VK/CK (Reuters)
This story first appeared on justicenews.co.in