Hyderabad varsity teachers slam Smriti Irani

SC/ST teachers of University of Hyderabad (UoH) have resigned from their administrative roles in protest against Union HRD minister Smriti Irani’s remarks that Dalit faculty members were also part of the university probe that eventually led to the expulsion of the research scholar Rohith Vemula alogwith four others. “She should be sacked forthwith”, Surjewala said.

Earlier this month, five students were thrown out of the hostel after they accused the university authorities of denying them access to campus facilities, except their classrooms and workshops.

He also demanded removal of Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya against whom an FIR was registered in the case.

“There has been a malicious attempt to ignite passions and present this as a caste battle which it is not. It shows their anti-Dalit attitude”, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told the media here in New Delhi.

“The VC should be removed immediately”, Kejriwal said to applause from the students who have been holding protests ever since Vemula took his life on Sunday after being suspended from the university.

The press release further stated, “It (sub-committee of executive council) was headed by an upper caste professor Vipin Srivastava and there are no Dalit faculty member in the sub-committee”.

Claiming that an attempt was being made to project the issue as Dalit versus non-Dalit confrontation, she also dismissed the demand for her resignation.

“She is spreading factually incorrect evidence”, he added. “If they (Congress) had fixed the problem four years ago, perhaps Rohith would have been alive”, the minister said.

Dalit teachers at the university say that Ms Irani has incorrectly said that the second inquiry was headed by a Dalit teacher.

She flashed a letter, saying it was the only document police got while investigating the case. She said whatever her ministry had done was done in accordance with the protocol of the Central Secretariat Manual of Office Procedure.

Speaking in the same vein, Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman too said that it is not “a Dalit versus non-Dalit issue”. Appa Rao among dalit students ever since his tenure as chief warden in the campus between 2001 and 2004. She also read out a few lines from the letter, suggesting what was being widely projected was not the truth.