Lucknow: Twenty three students, 20 of whom belong to Dalit communities, were arrested and jailed for agitating against the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) administration in Lucknow. The administration has suspended six students, out of whom three are from Dalit backgrounds.
On April 17, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) brought a sound system to the BBAU campus to commemorate Ram Navami without permission.
Dalit students went to the chancellor’s residence to complain about the ABVP, and student leaders held a demonstration outside chancellor Sanjay Singh’s home, blaming the university administration for not prohibiting the right-wing student union from using the sound system.
Dalit students were upset because the BBAU administration had previously denied them permission to use the sound system during a cultural event to commemorate Ambedkar’s birth anniversary.
According to the protesting students, the security officers beat them in front of the proctor, Sanjay Kumar.
Many of the students had sustained injuries and proceeded to the university’s medical centre for treatment.
Rahul Kumar, who is pursuing a master’s degree in history, claimed he sustained several injuries on his head, backbone, waist and hands.
Kumar also said that the security personnel used casteist remarks against Dalit students. Further, he suggested that the BBAU administration was complicit in the assault on Dalit students.
Another Dalit student, Ashwani Kumar, had injuries on his shoulder, mouth and neck.
“Police registered a frivolous first information report (FIR) against students on the complaint of [a] security agency, but cops have not registered a case against guards so far,” Kumar said.
On April 25, the protesting students were arrested around 11:30 pm. The university administration suspended six protesters on April 27.
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Student leader Abdul Wahab told The Wire that a dharna and hunger strike against the BBAU administration was started on campus after the incident.
According to Wahab, students were demanding the cancellation of the FIR filed by the security agency and the dissolution of the university’s proctorial board.
According to proctor Sanjay Kumar, security personnel were only trying to stop students from barging into the chancellor’s residence.
“On April 14, Ambedkar Jayanti was celebrated by university staff, but besides this, BBAU administration granted permission to students for another event on April 17,” said Kumar.
“However, we did not allow the use of sound systems on campus,” he added.
Kumar told The Wire that six students have been suspended from the university for a period of three months.
However, the students termed the suspension “illegal” as the reason for the suspension was not mentioned in the suspension letter issued by the BBAU administration.
According to C.P. Singh, inspector of the Ashiyana police station, a case has been filed against four identified and 25 unidentified students following a complaint from the security agency “Security and Intelligence Services”.
Students who have been booked include Ashwani Kumar, Rahul Kumar, Vikas Kumar and Alok Kumar Rao.
Singh said that “nearly 23 students were arrested and sent to jail.”
Roop Rekha Verma, the ex-chancellor of Lucknow University (LU), condemned the assault and arrest of Dalit students and stated that democratic atmosphere was fading in universities.
“I wonder how the BBAU administration was allowed to celebrate a religious event [Ram Navami] in its campus,” she said.
Notably, the BBAU administration had earlier prevented Roop Rekha Verma from taking part in Jyotoba Phule Jayanti on April 11.
This was not the first incident where Dalit students were targeted.
In Lucknow’s universities, tension is escalating between pro-Dalit organisations and the Hindutva right-wing faction, which has been tenaciously seeking to establish its dominance in institutions of higher learning since the saffron party came into power in the state.
The right-wing group at LU allegedly even threatened a professor. On May 11, 2022, ABVP students on the LU campus allegedly intimidated and heckled a Hindi professor, Ravikant Chandan, for statements he made on the ongoing dispute between the Gyanvapi mosque and the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi.
ABVP students also disrupted a rally hosted by various student unions on January 17, 2023, to commemorate the seventh death anniversary of Dalit student Rohith Vemula at LU.
The Ambedkar statue
In another incident, the local administration removed Ambedkar’s statue within hours of its installation on Ambedkar Jayanti.
According to villagers, during the Republic Day celebrations, they planned to erect a statue of Ambedkar in the Kesripur hemlet, for which they had identified a gram panchayat property.
A Hindu temple of the “Balaji Maharaj” deity was also located on the other side of the panchayat’s land.
Locals with the Ambedkar statue. Photo provided by author.
Before beginning the construction work, Dalit community members sought permission from Malti, who is a pradhan of Mandauli (Sandila), Hardoi.
Malti gave a no-objection certificate (NOC) for the statue’s erection, according to villagers.
In her NOC, she also stated that there is no disagreement among inhabitants of the village regarding erection of statues.
The statue’s construction started in February and ended in March. However, locals chose to unveil it on April 14, which is Ambedkar’s birth anniversary.
On April 14, villagers held a ceremony and unveiled the statue with great excitement.
However, the local administration marred the event the following evening. Police forces arrived in the village and ordered Dalits to remove the statue. Locals refused to remove it and began protesting against the administration’s diktat.
Bharat Choudhary, president of the Socialist Yuvjan Sabha (Hardoi), told The Wire that despite objections, the statue’s platform was demolished.
According to Choudhary, the police used a bulldozer to demolish the platform on which the statue stood.
“They also confiscated the statue,” Choudhary added.
Resentment among local villagers is brewing.
“What law permits the existence of a Hanuman temple on the same premises, while a bulldozer destroys a symbol of faith for others?” Choudhary questioned.
Ashok Bharti, general secretary of the Socialist Party of India’s, Hardoi unit, told The Wire that during a meeting on April 17, villagers decided that if the Ambedkar statue was not returned to its original location by 7 am on May 13, the day of the Lok Sabha election in this constituency, they will boycott the elections.
The police have registered a case against nearly 20 identified protestors. Keshawa Chand Goswami, the superintendent of police in Hardoi, said police have taken action on the complaint of a lekhpal (accountant) of the revenue department.
Goswami told The Wire that the statue’s installation was illegal because the district administration did not grant permission for it.
“A case has been registered against those who created the mayhem when officials were removing the statue,” he said.
Commenting on the incident, former MLA and Samajwadi Party leader Rajpal Kashyap expressed apprehension about the future of Dalits in India.
Kashyap asserted that the BJP initiated its campaign against Dalits by removing the Ambedkar statue and will conclude it by discarding the constitution he had authored.
He went on to say that if the BJP gets one more term, it will scrap the constitution to disempower Dalits, backwards and Muslims.
Arun Khote, a human rights activist who works with Dalits, suspects a plot behind the attack on Dalit students at BBAU.
According to Khote, the objective of forming BBAU was to empower underprivileged people, but recent incidents suggest that a plan is underway to remove them from the institution.
Khote also denounced the destruction of the statue, questioning that if the locals installed it illegally, why the administration did not give them enough time to fulfil the necessary formalities.
Note: An earlier version of this report misreported the number of arrested students and the caste background of those suspended.