By Atul Anand and Dhrubo Jyoti for Twocircles.net
Bhupali Magare, one of the students suspended from JNU for speaking out against the authoritarian decisions taken by the Vice Chancellor, said her fight against the authority will continue.
“There are other voices in the camps, which are not Left, which are not right…Ambedkarite voices…post BAPSA’s emergence, these (Ambedkarite voices) are being recognised,” said Magare, the President of Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA). Magare also pointed ot that the issue of reduction in Viva Voce marks has been a subject of discussion for a number of years, but that there were no concrete decisions taken on the same.
The setting up of a special committee, Abdul Nafey committee, was an indication of the same, and that while a number of faculty had also agreed that the Viva Voce marks should be reduced, it did not clear the air on how much. “The Nafey committee report has clearly advocated for a reduction in Viva Voce marks from 30 to 15, because there is a disparity, discrimination against marginalised communities…all these issues have been rejected by the VC,” she added.
Talking about how the marginalised communities have taken up the mantle of fighting for their rights, Magare said, “…students from marginalised communities are suspended, targeted, that too without an enquiry…the whole idea is that the marginalised students have started speaking for themselves…so the people who are at the forefront, the ‘progressives’, the question in their mind is ‘How can somebody who is coming from the marginalised community lead the struggle’…this should not be the question.”
“Sometimes, we (Dalit Bahujans) will speak and you, the progressives, listen. That is not acceptable for any mainstream political organisations, whether it is in electoral politics or in campus politics,” she said.
“When we say that we need to annihilate casteism and Brahmanism, it is for the whole society, to make it more egalitarian,” she added