Student Struggle – July 23, 2019

cratic society. Therefore it is also crucial to

ensure students and researchers are enjoyed
all democratic rights guaranteed by the very

constitution of India. Students and research-
ers should never be treated as a secondary
citizens inside the educational institutions

and should be allowed to performs all dem-
ocratic activities and engagements in an at-

mosphere of zero surveillance. This is why
we demand there must be a legislation by the
parliament of India to protect the campus

democracy and free and fair elections of stu-
dents unions in all educational institutions,

irrespective of public or private.

Social Justice

We recognise the absence of measures suffi-

cient to address the question of social justice
in higher education. There have been a num-
ber of incidents of discrimination against

the students belonging to socially oppressed
communities in the higher education insti-

tutions reported in recent time. Caste dis-

crimination and violence are increasing in

education sector. Reservation is not filled in

many of the institutions including the central

universities. We demand a special chapter in

the education policy to comprehensively ad-

dress this issue and also propose a stringent

law against any kind of caste discrimination

inside the institutions. The share of student

enrolment across all backward groups in In-

dia is lesser than their proportionate share

in population. OBCs had the highest share of

enrolments (35%), followed by SCs (14.4%),

Muslims (5%), STs (5.2%), and other minori-

ties (2.2%) following the trend of respective

population shares of each group in the total

population. In this phase, the question of ‘so-

cial Justice’ has been systematically ignored.

The 27% OBC hasn’t been implemented

properly in most of the educational institu-

tions, with cut-offs and eligibility criterion

been used to manipulate the rules. The con-

stitutionally mandatory seats reserved for

the SC/STs continue to remain vacant every

year. There is not a single concrete proposal

Image for representational use only.

Student Struggle | June - July 2019 15