The institute, increasingly seen to be supporting the BJP dispensation, has suspended a PhD scholar from a Dalit community and asked law enforcement agencies to launch an investigation against him for participating in a protest against the NEP.

By Sukanya Shantha

Mumbai: For the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, participating in protests for a better education policy, being critical of the government, having political views contrary to the establishment or forming a student group on campus are all ‘anti-national’ activities.

The institute, better known as TISS, has suspended a PhD scholar and asked law enforcement agencies to launch an investigation against him for participating in a protest organised in Delhi early this year. 

In a letter dated April 18, the TISS administration noted the suspension of Ramadas Prini Sivanandan, a PhD scholar from the Development Studies department at the Mumbai campus of TISS. He has also been debarred from entering any of TISS’s campuses for that period.

Sivanandan belongs to a Dalit community, is an active student leader from Kerala’s Wayanad and also a Central Executive Committee member of the leftwing Students’ Federation of India. He is also the joint secretary of its Maharashtra state committee and was a former general secretary of the Progressive Students’ Forum (PSF), a students’ collective at TISS.

This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.