HRD ministry's 'VIP treatment' to Dattatreya's letter, has left the government scurring for answers. These letters are being held up as proof of intense political pressure and direct interference in the affairs of the university by the ministry.
A trail of six letters emanating from the offices of Union ministers has put the Modi government in a tight spot. Office of Union HRD minister Smriti Irani shot one letter after another to the University of Hyderabad
allegedly leading to the suicide of 26-year-old research student Rohith Vemula. The suicide has now escalated into a major political row. Of these six letters, five were written from the office of Irani after receiving a complaint from BJP MP from Secunderabad Bandaru Dattatreya.
HRD ministry's 'VIP treatment' to Dattatreya's letter, has left the government scurring for answers. These letters are being held up as proof of intense political pressure and direct interference in the affairs of the university by the ministry.
The letters, sent between September and November, asked the university to respond to a written complaint by Bandaru Dattatreya against the alleged attack on an activist of the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in August last year.
Rohith's friends allege that the university's decision to punish the students was directly linked to the letter that Bandaru Dattatreya wrote to Union HRD minister Smriti Irani.
Dattatreya's letter called the university a "den of casteism, extremist and anti-national politics" and complained that it had been a "mute spectator" to the attack on the ABVP activist.
Dattatreya's letter to Irani was against the backdrop of the three-page letter written by the BJP vice president from Hyderabad Nandanam Diwakar on August 10. Diwakar in his letter narrated the incident when the ABVP student union president N Susheel Kumar was manhandled by the students of Ambedkar Student Association (ASA) and the university administration remained a spectator. "Attack on him (Kumar) is a consequence of an unchallenged growth of violent tendency on the campus aided by the failing of the university administration," wrote Diwakar.
Following the letter received from Dattatreya, HRD ministry first sent a mail to the university registrar on September 9, to examine the case and intimate it to the ministry.
A reminder was again sent out by the under secretary on September 24 to expedite the inquiry so that the ministry could reply to the MoS. A similar reminder was resent by deputy secretary, joint secretary and under secretary on October 6, October 20 and November 19 respectively.
Incidentally, two days after September 9, when HRD ministry wrote the first letter to the university to examine the case, Rohith and other students of ASA came out clean by the committee formulated under the university proctor. The Proctorial Board Report did not recommend any specific action on anyone.
However, the university succumbed to the constant pressure built by the ABVP students and HRD ministry the university suspended the five students later in the month. It upheld its suspension orders in December after two months review. The five students were expelled from the hostel and other common areas. The university submitted its reply to the HRD ministry on January 7.
The ministry however said that the sending out five letters in a row was a part procedure followed the government. "It would be wrong to say that the ministry has put any pressure on the Hyderabad University. The ministry had only followed the procedure as per the Central Secretariat Manual of Office Procedure," HRD ministry spokesperson Ghanshyam Goel said.
The government procedure recommends that any VIP reference, has to be acknowledged in 15 days and another 15 days may be taken to reply to it. The ministry however wrote to the university on September 24 and again on October 6, within a gap on 12 days.
As the incident started snowballing, the HRD ministry on Monday sent out a fact finding team from Delhi to Hyderabad. The team comprising of two members was however not allowed to enter the campus by the enraged students. They returned back to Delhi on Tuesday.
The direct involvement of the ministry first into the matters of university's administration and then sending a team from Delhi has also left the teachers body upset.
"This situation would have been avoided if the university would have been allowed to work without any political interference. The universities must be allowed to function as an academic platform for debates and discussions freely, which seems to be threatened under the prevailing circumstances. There is an urgent need to conduct an impartial probe in the whole episode,"said former president of Federation of Central Universities'Teachers'Association Aditya N Misra. Misra represents Academic for Action and Development, the Congress led teachers' body.
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