The year 2019 did not begin on a happy note at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati. Angry voices of dejected students who protested against the administration echoed inside the campus in the first month of the year itself.
The protests began on January 16 2019, when the representatives of the Government of India’s Post-Matric Scholarship (GoI-PMS) wrote to the administration that they were going on a strike as they felt that the TISS Guwahati administration had not fulfilled the commitments which they made during negotiations mutually agreed upon in March 2018. Their basic demands included full fee waiver for GoI-PMS students. The students also demanded that no charges be levied on hostels and dining hall.
According to official sources, it was because of the assurance that the administration would consider the fee waiver, that 62 students from marginalised communities took admission for the academic year 2018-19. “Most of the students who come here from the reserved category are not financially well-off. The college cannot suddenly after admission ask for the entire fee,” said Tikendra Rai Chelak, president of GoI-PMS Students’ Association at TISS Guwahati.
The students boycotted their classes and moved their protest around the campus. Students at TISS Mumbai also extended their solidarity, by wearing badges with ‘injustice’ written on them to their classes.
However, the institute’s administration said that steps have been taken to enhance the student aid fellowship for students from marginalised communities. “We are committed to our core value of honouring rights of these students. Even as the government has rolled back its scheme meant for GoI-PMS students a couple of years back, TISS has taken an initiative for substantial enhancement of fund allotment under the student aid fellowship,” Kalpana Sarathy, deputy director (acting) told The Shillong Times.
On January 28, after 12 days of protest, the students at TISS Guwahati announced that they were going on an indefinite hunger strike, since previous protests were met with no response.
Featured image source: TISS For Everyone/Twitter.
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