bahujan issues – Notes on the Academy

– The NotA Collective

^{Thorat, S., Shyamprasad, K. M., and Srivastava, R. K. (2007)}
^{Report of the committee to enquire into the allegation of differential treatment of SC/ST students in All India Institute of Medical Science}

A few weeks ago, a postgraduate medical student, Dr. Bhagwat Devangan, died by suicide at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College in Jabalpur, allegedly due to ragging by his seniors. Bhagwat had on multiple occasions complained of maltreatment by his seniors as he belonged to a “lower caste community”.¹ This is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. Just last year, we learned of the institutional murder of Dr. Payal Tadvi, a 26-year old Adivasi Muslim gynaecologist at B Y L Nair Hospital and student at TN Topiwala National Medical College in Mumbai. She too died by suicide after being subjected to casteist slurs and harassment (ragging) based on her caste.² In light of these incidents, we feel that it is pertinent to discuss a significant report that provides evidence of caste discrimination in higher educational institutions — The Thorat Committee Report.

– The NotA Collective

^{Deshpande, S., and Zacharias, U. (Eds.)}
^{Beyond Inclusion: The Practice of Equal Access in Indian Higher Education (1st ed.)}
^{Routledge India (2013)}

Beyond Inclusion is one of the shockingly few books about the treatment of Dalit and Bahujan students by our country’s higher education system. Despite what this description might make it sound like, this book is about far more than just reservations.¹ It begins with the observation that getting the disadvantaged admitted into colleges is only the first step in what should be a long process, and sets out to study that entire process. This is an ambitious goal, and the editors have gone about it by collecting chapters on a variety of topics, from both social science researchers as well as people in the field.

Notes on the Academy

Tag: bahujan issues

The Spectre that Haunts Academia: Caste and the Thorat Report

An Invitation to Beyond Inclusion