Mumbai: Over a dozen residential PhD scholars at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai were asked to vacate their campus accommodations within 24 hours, The Wire reported.
The scholars who have been turned out of their accommodation primarily belong to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), and Denotified/Nomadic communities.
Authorities reportedly disqualified them from having campus housing citing that they enrolled over five years ago.
The eviction letter served to PhD scholars states: “You are very well aware that this institute is a public university and all students are entitled, subject to satisfaction of certain conditions, for allotment of hostel rooms so that there is no hindrance in pursuing their higher education.”
Majority of the scholars are from the rural Maharashtra and other regions of the country.
One scholar was quoted as asking: “How does the institute administration think we can vacate our rooms in a day and move to our hometown?”
Enrolled in 2019, another scholar who is in the writing state of the thesis questioned the authorities’ claims: “They (the institute) claim we have occupied the space for over five years. That is a blatant lie. Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic broke, the campus went under complete lockdown and for over two and a half years, we were back in our villages.”
Scholars mostly have been staying on the campus for nearly three to three and half years.
Where PhD programmes usually takes five years to complete, the pandemic caused delays particularly in carrying out fieldwork, according to the report.’
Hostel facilities at TISS are primarily offered to students belonging to SC, ST, and OBC backgrounds; however the accommodation is not free.
When they got notices already in April and June, the scholars informed the administration of their difficulties saying that they in the crucial stage of writing the thesis.
“In June, the administration even assured us an extension until September. But suddenly this eviction notice arrived,” a student was quoted as saying.
TISS, previously an autonomous university, is now governed by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
The institute recently issued en masse termination letters to over 100 teaching and non-teaching staff across all four campuses, which it withdrew following public outcry. However, the institute is yet to reach solution for those staff members.
It is reported that the scholars facing eviction include those who frequently questioned the ‘administration’s shortcomings’ with one scholar saying: “It seems like they want to get rid of politically conscious and vocal students. Overstay is just a flimsy excuse for this eviction.”