Noam Chomsky and Over 300 Academics Condemn State Violence on HCU Students

NEW DELHI: Academics, Artists, Writers, Activists across the world have come together to issue a strong statement against the police action on students at the Hyderabad Central University and the “siege like situation” created within. The statement notes that the detained students were “untraceable for 48 hours, brutally tortured, and denied legal access. In short, all legal procedures of detention have been suspended.” It points to the the “brutal assault” of students when they opened community kitchens in the campus and the denial of access to lawyers and others to the students in the university. 

The full text of the statement signed by reputed scholars including Noam Chomsky reads: 

“We, academicians, activists, artists and writers, condemn the ongoing brutal attacks on and unlawful detention of peacefully protesting faculty and students at the University of Hyderabad by the University administration and the police. 

We also condemn the restriction of access to basic necessities such as water and food on campus. The students and faculty members of the University of Hyderabad were protesting the reinstatement of Dr. Appa Rao Podile as the Vice-Chancellor despite the ongoing judicial enquiry against him related to the circumstances leading to the death of the dalit student Rohith Vemula on January 17th, 2016. 

Students and faculty members of the university community are concerned that this may provide him the opportunity to tamper with evidence and to influence witnesses. Suicides by dalit students have been recurring in the University of Hyderabad and other campuses across the country. The issue spiraled into a nationwide students’ protest with the death of the dalit scholar Rohith Vemula. The protests have pushed into the foreground public discussion and debate on the persistence of caste-based discrimination in educational institutions, and surveillance and suppression of dissent and intellectual debate in university spaces. 

Since the morning of March 22 when Dr. Appa Rao returned to campus, the students and staff have been in a siege-like situation. The peacefully protesting staff and students were brutally lathi-charged by the police, and 27 people were taken into custody. 

The 27 detainees were untraceable for 48 hours, brutally tortured, and denied legal access. In short, all legal procedures of detention have been suspended. After the incident, the university has been locked down with no access to food, water, electricity, and Internet connectivity. Students were brutally assaulted when they opened community kitchens. Lawyers and members of human rights organization as well the ordinary citizens of the city were denied access to students. University of Hyderabad is one of India’s biggest public universities. 

We have followed, with deep concern, similar violent attacks and undemocratic crackdown on students on the campuses of Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Film and Television Institute of India, the University of Allahabad, Jadavpur University, Burdwan University, and others across the country. That the highest administrative authorities in the university have allowed the silencing of debate and dissent is unfortunate. 

We are disturbed by the pattern of growing nexus between student vigilante groups, youth wing of the ruling party, state and university authorities in colleges and university campuses across the country in order to mobilize the state machinery against vulnerable students. This has created a climate of fear and oppression in the country, and continually violates fundamental human and Constitutional rights of students. 

We stand in support of the protesting students, staff and faculty of the University of Hyderabad and demand the following: 

1. Immediate withdrawal of police from the campus. 
2. Immediate release of, and withdrawal of all cases against, all arrested students and faculty. 
3. Suspension of the Vice-Chancellor P. Appa Rao. 
4. Judicial enquiry into the role of the HRD Ministry, the HRD Minister and Mr. Bandaru Dattatreya in inciting violence against Dalits on campus. 
5. Independent enquiry into the incidents of violence on the campus including the role of the ABVP in vandalising the Vice-Chancellor's office. 
6. Action against police personnel named by students in their complaints. 
7. Passage of the “Rohith Act” against caste discrimination in education.” 

A partial list of the signatories is as follows: 

 

1. Lawrence Cohen, Director, Institute for South Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley 
2. Navtej K Purewal Deputy Director, South Asia Institute SOAS University of London 
3. Akhil Gupta, Director, Center for India and South Asia (CISA), UCLA 
4. Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus), MIT 
5. Michael Davis, Professor Emeritus, Department of Creative Writing, University of California Riverside 
6. Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director, The Oakland Institute 
7. Barbara Harriss-White, Oxford University 
8. Kavita Krishnan, Secretary AIPWA 
9. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University 
10. G. Arunima, Professor and Chair, Centre for Women's Studies, School of Social Sciences, JNU 
11. Sandeep Pandey, former Visiting Faculty, IIT, BHU, Varanasi 
12. Michael D. Yates, Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, United States 
13. Abha Sur, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
14. Akeel Bilgrami, Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University 
15. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Chair, Department of International Development Studies, Trent University, Canada 
16. Apoorvanand, University of Delhi 
17. Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Professor of Political Science and Chair of Women’s Studies Department, Simon Fraser University, Canada 
18. Gerald Epstein, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
19. Surinder S. Jodhka, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
20. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University 
21. Sangeeta Kamat, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
22. Dr. Shailaja Paik, University of Cincinnati 
23. Kevin B. Anderson, Professor of Sociology, University of California Santa Barbara 
24. Tithi Bhattacharya, Professor of History, Purdue University 
25. Pranav Jani, The Ohio State University 
26. Vinay Gidwani, University of Minnesota 
27. Nivedita Menon, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
28. Alpa Shah, London School of Economics 
29. Jayati Ghosh, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
30. Srirupa Roy, University of Göttingen, Germany 
31. Rahul Varman, IIT Kanpur 
32. Ashwini Tambe, University of Maryland, College Park 
33. Jens Lerche, SOAS, University of London 
34. Gillian Hart, Professor, University of California, Berkeley 
35. Adrian Wilson, Social Anthropology, London School of Economics 
36. Ayesha Kidwai, Professor ,Jawaharlal Nehru University 
37. Meher Engineer 
38. Aishwary Kumar, School of Humanities & Sciences, Stanford University 
39. Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies, Harvard University 
40. Jyoti Puri, Chair and Professor of Sociology, Simmons College 
41. Abdul JanMohamed, Professor, University of California, Berkeley 
42. Dr. Nathaniel Roberts, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Goettingen, Germany 
43. Paula Chakravartty, New York University 
44. Atul Sood, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
45. Prof. Mohan Rao, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
46. Yasmin Saikia, Professor of History, Arizona State University 
47. Nandini Chandra, Delhi University 
48. Elisabeth Weber, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara 
49. C. P. Chandrasekhar, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
50. Prof. Rupa Viswanath, University of Goettingen, Germany 
51. Rama Baru, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
52. Svati Shah, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
53. Immanuel Ness, Professor, City University of New York 
54. Balmurli Natrajan, William Paterson University 
55. Veena Hariharan, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
56. Rajat Datta, Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
57. Geraldine Forbes, Professor, State University of New York, Oswego 
58. Joya Misra, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
59. Richard Seymour, London School of Economics 
60. Susan Visvanathan, Professor of Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
61. Dr. Pérez de Mendiola, Richard Armour Professor of Modern Languages, Chair, 
62. Dept. of Latin American, Caribbean and Spanish Literatures and Cultures & Humanities, Scripps College 
63. Peter Spiegler, Asst. Prof., Dept. of Economics, UMass, Amherst 
64. Swati Birla, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
65. Atreyi Dasgupta, Baylor College of Medicine 
66. Kuver Sinha, Syracuse University 
67. Sirisha Naidu, Wright State University 
68. Siddhartha Mitra, Programmer, Rockefeller University 
69. Samantha Agarwal, PhD Candidate, Johns Hopkins University 
70. Anup Gampa, PhD Candidate, University of Virginia 
71. Anu Mandavilli, Friends of South Asia 
72. Deepankar Basu, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
73. Nandini Dhar, Assistant Professor, Florida International University 
74. Michael Levien, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University 
75. Devika Dutt, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
76. Smita Ramnarain, Assistant Professor of Economics, Siena College 
77. Taki Manolakos, Wright State University 
78. Valentina Dallona, Johns Hopkins University 
79. Iveta Jusova, Carleton College, USA 
80. Aditi Chandra, University of California, Merced 
81. Hee-Young Shin, Wright State University 
82. Anjali Arondekar, UC Santa Cruz 
83. Jinee Lokaneeta, Drew University 
84. Ajay Chandra, University of Warwick 
85. Xiao Yu, Peking University 
86. Bettina Apthekar, UC Santa Cruz 
87. Anirban Karak, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
88. Natasha S K, Syracuse University 
89. Mitul Barua, Syracuse University 
90. Simmy Makhijani, San Francisco State University 
91. Sofia Gavtadze, Solidarity Network, Georgi 
92. Avishek Konar, Alumnus, The Ohio State University 
93. Robert Carley, Wright State University 
94. Dia Da Costa, Associate Professor, University of Alberta 
95. Ann Smock, University of California, Berkeley 
96. Liz Mount, Syracuse University 
97. Terese V Gagnon, Syracuse University 
98. Giorgi Kobakhidze, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia 
99. Levin Ahmed, Jawaharlal Nehru University 
100. Christos Mais, Universiteit Leiden
101. Taveeshi Singh, Syracuse University 
102. Aniruddha Das, Columbia University 
103. Safar Safqat, St Mary’s College of Maryland 
104. Ramaa Vasudevan, Colorado State University 
105. Osman Keshawarz, doctoral student, University of Massachusetts at Amherst 
106. Narendra Subramaniam, McGill University 
107. Ammel Sharon, University of Pennsylvania 
108. Gventa Gventsadze 
109. Borisi Cirekidze 
110. Minakshi Menon, Max Planck Institute, Berlin 
111. Dmitri Khuskivadze 
112. Salo Kaladze 
113. Judith Rodenbeck, UC Riverside 
114. Ashok Prasad, Colorado State University 
115. Priyanka Srivastava, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
116. Arani Roy, Brandeis University 
117. Dag Erik Berg, University of Gottingen, Germany 
118. Rahul Nair, Antioch College, USA 
119. Gajendran Ayyathurai, Goettingen University, Germany 
120. Balaji Narasimhan, William Paterson University, United States 
121. Ember Skye Kanelee, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
122. Jungyeon Suh, Independent Researcher, United States 
123. Kannan Srinivasan 
124. Roli Verma, University of New Mexico 
125. Piya Chatterjee, Scripps College, US 
126. Lalit Batra, University of Minnesota 
127. Avanti Mukherjee, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
128. Tyler Hansen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
129. Subho Basu, McGill University, Canada 
130. Laurie Nisonoff, Hampshire College, United States 
131. Satya Mohapatra, MIT 
132. Julia Corwin, University of Minnesota 
133. Parama Roy, UC Davis 
134. Krishna Melnattur, Washington University School of Medicine 
135. Rupal Oza, Hunter College, City University of New York 
136. Noeleen McIlvenna, Wright State University 
137. Daniel Thompson, Johns Hopkins University 
138. Jesse Knutson, University of Hawaii, Manoa 
139. Prashant Keshavmurthy, McGill University, Canada 
140. Anasuya Sengupta, Berkeley, USA 
141. Uditi Sen, Hampshire College 
142. Zarrina Juraqulova, Denison University, USA 
143. Kiran Asher, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
144. Prakash Kashwan, University of Connecticut, Storrs 
145. Hamid Rezai, Pitzer College, USA 
146. Anindya Dey, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 
147. Lara Deeb, Scripps College, USA 
148. Richa Nagar, University of Minnesota 
149. Vatsal Naresh, Columbia University 
150. Niharika Yadav, Princeton University
151. Bedatri Datta Choudhury, NYU 
152. Sanjiv Gupta, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
153. Suvadip Sinha, University of Minnesota 
154. Ipsita Mandal, Perimeter Institute, Canada 
155. Poulomi Pal, Fulbright scholar 
156. Asmita Rangari, Activist, New Delhi 
157. Shipra Nigam, Activist, New Delhi 
158. Srinivas Lankala, Independent media scholar, Hyderabad 
159. Carolyn Elliott, University of Vermont 
160. Aviroop Sengupta, Columbia University 
161. Madhura Lohokare, Syracuse University 
162. Arijit Sen, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 
163. Suyapa Portillo Villeda, Pitzer College, USA 
164. Oishik Sircar, University of Melbourne 
165. Arjun Bagchi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
166. Greg Anderson, Ohio State University 
167. Prarit Agarwal, Seoul National University, Korea 
168. Sayori Ghoshal, Columbia University 
169. Uponita Mukherjee, Columbia University 
170. Suyapa Portillo Villeda, Pitzer College 
171. Patricia Morton, University of California, Riverside 
172. Sofia Checa, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
173. Arpan Roy, John Hopkins University 
174. Cynthia Correa, The University of Texas at Austin 
175. Parvathy Binoy, Syracuse University, Syracuse 
176. Jonathon Hurd, RN, Seattle 
177. Varuni Bhatia, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 
178. Erin McElroy, UCSC, Director, Anti-Eviction Mapping Project 
179. Geert Dhondt, John Jay College, The City University of New York 
180. Mithun Bhowmick, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign