Don’t protest if you want to stay in our hostels, Mamata govt tells SC/ST students

‘You can either stay in our hostels or protest against us’. This is the message the West Bengal government is trying to send through its notification to Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe category students applying for central hostels.  

The Bengal government’s Backward Classes Welfare Department, has notified that SC/ST students applying for central hostels will have to sign a written declaration stating that he or she is not “associated with any subversive activities or any movement against the government”.

While the notification was issued last year, the matter has come to light recently after students were given the application forms in which they have to sign the declaration.

Students as well as civil society organisations have demanded the withdrawal of its notification saying that it is “unconstitutional”.

Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), Kolkata based rights group will be approaching the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes seeking their intervention.

“Right to protest is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution. This notification is unconstitutional as it takes away this right. Moreover, this provision can be used to evict any student on flimsy grounds,” APDR secretary Ranjit Sur said.

“The government which is subverting students’ fundamental and human rights wants them to give a declaration that they are not involved in any subversive activity. This is not just derogatory, it also appears to be aimed at denying SC/ST students the hostel facility which is their right,” he said.
The APDR will also be moving a complaint to the State Human Rights Commission.  

Various students associations including the All India Students' Association (AISA) have called for a mass movement against the “black provision” and will be staging demonstrations demanding its withdrawal as well as the removal of State Backward Classes Welfare Minister Churamani Mahato.

“Admissions to these hostels are often guided by political and money power instead of merit of a student. Through this fascist provision, the government wants to ensure that there are no protests against the irregularities or the poor quality of these hostels,” AISA said in a statement.          

Mahato, however, defended the decision saying students should focus on studies instead of politics.

“Our campuses have been infamous for violence, for confining teachers in name of protests and vandalising government properties. It’s only a fraction of students who indulge in such disruptive activities. Why should students suffer because of politics? Their job is to study and our job is to ensure better facilities and infrastructure,” said Mahato asserting the students were not opposed to the provision.

While All India Trinamool Congress supremo Banerjee cut her teeth in politics as a student leader, her government has steadily been working towards depoliticising campuses in Bengal which have witnessed violence in recent years.

In June, the government notified new rules for students’ elections, changing the composition of student bodies and making them apolitical.

The rules prohibit use of a banner or emblem of any political party during elections or campaigning and students’ unions have been replaced by a ‘Students’ Council’.

It also mandates that the President and the Vice President of the Students’ Council of a college will be a teacher who shall be nominated by the Principal/Vice Principal.

The West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Composition, Functions and Procedure for Election of Students' Council) Rules, 2017 also make campus elections a biennial affair instead of annual.

The reforms in the campus elections had provoked severe criticism from opposition parties particularly the Left as well as from academicians.

The Chief Minister in March had described students’ union elections as “waste of energy” and had stressed on her government’s effort to reform them.