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Journalism of Courage
Students of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), who have been protesting for the past eight days, have now taken their protest to the Central government. In a letter to Union ministries such as Human Resource Development, Tribal Affairs and Social Justice and Empowerment, the students have raised the issue of “a larger problem of fund cuts for the public education, and socio-economically marginalised communities being the immediate victims of such policy”.
Drawing the attention of the Central government to the ongoing nationwide protest against the withdrawal of fee waivers to SC and ST students, the student union of TISS wrote: “In an unprecedented move, TISS administration suspended the fee exemption for the OBC NC students in the year 2014 and for the SC/ST students in the year 2016, and students have been opposing this since then. All of these students now need to pay the full fees as prescribed for the general category students. We have also observed through the RTI reply that since 2015, the enrollment rate of the students belonging from SC/ST and OBC is going down, as well as there is an increase in their drop-out ratio.”
Students of all four campuses of TISS — Mumbai, Tuljapur, Hyderabad and Guwahati — have been protesting against the institute’s administration by boycotting classes and blocking the main gate. Six students from the Hyderabad campus had launched a hunger strike on Tuesday but withdrew it when the administration agreed to many of the demands specifically made by the students of Hyderabad campus.
“Primarily, there was an administrative lapse that had affected the OBC students admitted here. Despite mentioning a waiver during admissions, the institute started charging hostel and dining charges from OBC students. Now the administration has agreed to waive off the charges for existing students,” said a student from the Hyderabad campus.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the institute said students eligible for the post-matric scholarship could continue to attend classes and use the dining and hostel facilities “despite their dues on account of these charges to the Institute”.
“TISS understands that students can pay the requisite fees when they receive the scholarships amounts from the respective governments. Therefore, for the 2016-18 batch, all the SC/ST GoI-PMS scholarship holders registered for the Masters’ programme in 2016-18 will be permitted to continue with their studies and appear for examinations in March-April 2018. In consideration of the difficulties faced by students, the hostel charges for the 2016-18 batch have been waived off. The payment of dining hall charges is being deferred until the time that the students have the means to pay so (i.e. as and when they receive the scholarship amount from the government in their accounts or when they get employed),” read the statement.
Students, however, continued to protest and demanded a more “specific” notification from the institute. “What the institute has issued is very vague. We want the administration to issue a notification clearly stating that the hostel and dining fee is waived off,” said Fahad Ahmad, general secretary, TISS student union.
