Anand Patwardhan, director of Ram Ke Naam, extended support and said that this was reminiscent of the attack on Rohith Vemula, which must be resisted by all citizens of India.
By Ajay U K
Members of Progressive Students Forum, a student organisation at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, have criticised the institute’s move to suspend Ramadas Prini Sivanandan, a Dalit PhD scholar at its Mumbai campus for two years over alleged ‘anti-national’ activities. They said Ramadas, who is a Central Executive Committee member of the Students Federation of India (SFI), had not violated the rules as alleged by the institute and that he was specifically targeted for being vocal against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
A show-cause notice was sent to the student by TISS Mumbai on March 7 claiming alleged falsehoods about his “repeated misconduct and anti-national activities.” In the notice, the college management accused Ramadas of staging a demonstration outside the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on January 12 under the banner of Progressive Students Federation (PSF) – TISS. “Further, you have also posted some pamphlets on social media sites calling upon to join screening of the documentary “Ram Ke Naam” on 26 January, 2024 at 7:00 pm as a mark of dishonour and protest against the Ram mandir inauguration in Ayodhya,” the notice read.
It goes on to say that Ramadas screened the “banned” BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and organised Bhagat Singh Memorial Lecture by inviting “controversial speakers”. The speakers of the lecture were People’s Archive of Rural India founder P Sainath, anti-caste activist Bezawada Wilson and editor of Economic and Political Weekly Gopal Guru among others.
This story was originally published in thenewsminute.com. Read the full story here.