Editor,
The students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences had been organising the Bhagat Singh Memorial lecture since 2018. It was held at the campus amphitheatre till 2020, before Covid forced a shift online in 2021 and 2022.
In 2023, human rights activist Harsh Mander was to speak at the event at the amphitheatre. But the institute denied permission. Thereafter, it was held online.
The students informed the institute administration in December 2023 that Magsaysay Award winner, social activist Bezwada Wilson would deliver the lecture in 2024.
Interestingly, the institute, which had been regarded as a liberal campus, came up with a notice on 16 February, saying about the lecture which was scheduled to be delivered on 17 February “not to associate the above events with TISS in any capacity.”
However, the event was organised over Zoom by the Students Organising Committee, an independent forum of TISS students. Wilson, a campaigner for the eradication of manual scavenging and caste atrocities, delivered the Bhagat Singh Memorial Lecture on ‘Human rights and constitutional values in contemporary times: Role of university and public’.
A student observed that the institute had been trying to restrict student-led activities for the past one year. The student further said, “In the name of issuing new guidelines, the institute has been creating hurdles before students’ activities. The students are a major stakeholder and have a say in the institute. Efforts to curb their voice are undemocratic and unacceptable.”
According to the 2023 Academic Freedom Index (AFI) report, India scored 0.38 on a scale of 0 (lowest) to 1 (highest). The report says that India is among 22 countries (out of 179) where institutions and scholars enjoy “significantly less freedom today than 10 years ago,”
Among our neighbours, Pakistan (0.45), Bhutan (0.46) and Nepal (0.86) scored higher, whereas Bangladesh (0.25) and Myanmar (0.01) scored lower than India.
India performed poorly in the report about campus integrity because of political interference. The situation has been deteriorating further since the publication of the report in February last year. Sabyasachi Das, an assistant professor at Ashoka University, resigned as a result of the controversy over his research paper on India’s democratic backsliding.
Recently, Unacademy, an online education platform, fired an instructor, Karan Sangwan, after a video of him talking to students about voting for educated candidates went viral. All these incidents will be evaluated in the next report of the AFI which already described the autonomy of Indian institutions to express views on political issues as very poor.
Now let us get back to Dalit activist Bezwada Wilson, who delivered the 2024 Bhagat Singh Memorial lecture. Born in a community of manual scavengers in Kolar, Karnataka, he saw his own parents carrying human excreta. Later, Wilson led a nationwide movement called ‘Safai Karmachari Andolan’. This organisation is also trying to find out better jobs for manual scavengers. He got the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his work in 2016.
The importance of his movement can be gauged from the data tabled in the Lok Sabha by the union government on 25 July, 2023. As per the data, as many as 339 people died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in India in just five years, between 2018 and 2022.
The practice of sending workers inside a sewer without oxygen mask and other suitable protective equipments can choke a scavenger to death. On the other hand, the practice of gagging academic freedom can choke free thinking of students. Both must be stopped.
Sujit De,
Kolkata