Student Academic Freedom and Student Solidarity

28th Jun 202120th Jul 2021 The NotA Collective2 Comments

– The NotA Collective

Recently, “The Mine Field,”¹ a powerful testimonial that was published in NotA, received many heartfelt responses. Two of particular interest to us were those from faculty members in Indian institutes.^2,3 Since one of the prime purposes of this publication is to start a conversation about life in Indian academia specifically and academia more broadly, we must begin by thanking them for participating.

What follows is more than 1000 words in response to a couple of tweets from months ago. This is somewhat self-evidently ridiculous. We would like to offer the following in the spirit of countering harmful ideas that we thought were reflected in the tweets, while fully acknowledging that it is unreasonable to assume that these 140 characters, or what we read into them, is a reflection of the authors’ true opinions.

They Did Not Know We Were Grass

18th Jun 202119th Jun 2021 The NotA Collective2 Comments

R. G. Sudharson, an assistant professor at the Madras School of Social Work (MSSW), was summarily dismissed by the college administration. A petition with 167 signatures was sent to the administration, and no reply has been received. Some students and alumni organised a meeting regarding ways to move forward. COLLECTIVE was asked to speak at this meeting. Here we publish the text of their statement.

Thank you for giving us your time this afternoon. On behalf of my organization COLLECTIVE, I extend solidarity to RG Sudharson who has been unjustly terminated by the Madras School of Social Work due this political beliefs. I thank you for coming forward with your experiences and, I think I speak on behalf of all of us here, that we hear you and you are not alone in this struggle.

As I see this gathering today, I am reminded of the lines of the revolutionary poet Paash, who says (I paraphrase), ‘They thought they could bomb our schools and hostels… They did not know we were grass, we would grow back over their injustices.’ MSSW thought that they could eliminate struggling voices in campus by removing one teacher, and here we are, so many of us, thinking together about the way forward as a result.

Press Release for Rights In Our Campus Event

17th Jun 202117th Jun 2021 The NotA Collective1 Comment

On the 6th of June, 2021, the students and alumni of the Madras School of Social Work (MSSW) and Notes on the Academy organised a webinar on the theme of Rights in Our Campus. The meeting was precipitated by a growing list of issues faced by MSSW students on their campus. The need for such a discussion was realised after the unlawful termination of Prof. R. G. Sudharshon, a popular faculty member in the Department of Developmental Management who was known for his strong pro-student views and his consistent opposition to hierarchical practices on campus. Also invited to participate in this webinar were Collective (a Delhi-based revolutionary student organization), and The Teachers’ Collective (a Chennai-based teachers organisation).

The meeting was attended by several faculty members and students from other colleges as well, and saw a lively and wide-ranging discussion of the suppression of democratic rights of students and faculty members in MSSW and other campuses across the country. In particular, the discussion of the campus environment and practices of several faculty members by MSSW students and alumni shook participants to their core.

The real cause of a summary dismissal from an academic institution amidst the pandemic

15th Jun 202114th Jun 2021 The NotA Collective1 Comment

R. G. Sudharson, an assistant professor at the Madras School of Social Work (MSSW), was summarily dismissed by the college administration. His appeal for an enquiry into the circumstances of his dismissal was ignored. We are republishing this piece by Sudharson regarding the reason for his dismissal from Ground Xero, with permission.

I’m writing this lengthy post in an attempt to recount what led to my summary dismissal from a Social Work Institution in Chennai and how I feel about it. I would like to thank ‘Notes on the Academy‘ (NotA), ‘Collective’ , my beloved students & alumni, friends and comrades, for your continuous solidarity. Growing up as a student, my individuality and original aspirations were scarred by unsparing teachers, egged on by an education system where the vast majority of students are set up to ‘fail’. It was made sinful for me to have my little quirks and to function as a child. Whenever I become an embarassment to my teachers or parents, the only means I had to escape the daily punishment and abuse was by zoning out or sleeping off the trauma. In both school and college, toxicity was the one unchanging rule of the game. During my adult years I have dreamt of being many things, of which being a kind empathetic teacher ultimately assumed the most significance. It is extremely motivating for me to have met all of you who share those very same dreams.

It is shocking that the Institution chose to dismiss me amidst the double pandemic of COVID and unemployment. I have worked with the Institution for 4+ years without a single blackmark. However, on multiple occasions fellow faculty and well-wishers from inside the Institution have alerted me to the management’s monitoring of my political views including my Facebook posts. There were instances when my position on gender-sensitivity and objections to tolerating sexism resulted in open confrontations with the college authorities. I was even cautioned by a few well-wishers that my political views and pedagogical methods, if not made discreet, might cost me my job.

Why R.G. Sudharson’s Dismissal From Madras School of Social Work Must Be Resisted

14th Jun 202114th Jun 2021 The NotA Collective1 Comment

Recently, Prof R G Sudharson was terminated from the Madras School of Social Work without due process. A petition with 167 signatories was sent to the administration, and they did not reply. The NotA Collective wrote an op-ed for The Wire, reproduced here.

On May 5th, R. G. Sudharson, an assistant professor at the Madras School of Social Work (MSSW), was summarily dismissed by the college administration. His appeal for an enquiry into the circumstances of his dismissal was ignored. The letter of dismissal makes no reference to any complaints against Sudharson, and indeed, in the testimony of many students over the last four years repeated mention is made of the positive environment Sudharson had cultivated in his classroom, his thoughtful and diligent mentorship of postgraduate students, and his steadfast commitment to and advocacy for the welfare of students not just in his college but in the wider city of Chennai.

No charges were brought, no committees were constituted, no due process was followed. He was given an impossible choice: to either resign or face termination. Further, to the surprise of many, his letter of dismissal casts baseless aspersions on his professionalism, by alleging that he was not “diligent in the discharge of duties expected”, a vindictive move that is surely calculated to make it difficult for him to secure another academic position.

Statements of Resistance

1st Jun 20211st Jun 2021 The NotA CollectiveLeave a comment

– Ronak Gupta

I vividly remember watching Nagraj Manjule’s searing debut film Fandry for the first time, a few years ago. I had never quite seen anything like it until then. Fandry uses tropes of love stories from mainstream cinema and yet does something these movies consciously avoid – it indicts the caste system. Manjule said in an interview,¹

“Caste is the foundation of our society. It’s a reality that you need to have a special talent to avoid. Bollywood has that talent, I don’t…”

Indeed, Hindi films largely gloss over the subject of caste and blunt most conflicts down to a class disparity, as illustrated particularly starkly in the Bollywood remake of Manjule’s sophomore feature Sairat. Manjule’s Fandry introduced me to a radical artistic voice, the kind that was conspicuously absent from the media I had consumed until then. It made a deep impression on me. It implored me to seek out a different kind of cinema and expand the scope of art I engage with. It is on this path that I discovered Yogesh Maitreya’s excellent collection of short stories Flowers on the Grave of Caste.

Yogesh Maitreya is a writer, poet, and translator who also runs Panther’s Paw, a publishing house with a strong focus on promoting anti-caste literature. His collection contains six stories across which he widely experiments with literary style and scope. The result is an eclectic collection of short-fiction that is written in simple but often poetic prose. Yogesh’s sentences invoke powerful imagery and nowhere is this more apparent than the contrasting images that begin and end the first story “Re-evolution,” a fable of revenge, in which Yogesh weaves a personal journey coming to full circle.