Muthu, also a Dalit student, was an active participant in the Rohith Vemula movement which was initiated after the death of another UoH scholar named Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student in Delhi. On March 10th, Muthu posted a rather disturbing status on social media which said, “There is no Equality in M.phil/Ph.D. Admission, there is no equality in Viva – Voce, there is the only denial of equality, denying prof. Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying Students protest places in Ad – block, denying the education of the Marginals. When Equality is denied everything is denied.”
Dontha Prasadh, another Dalit student activist and a dear friend of Rohith said, “This is a sad news for us, we are still in shock. I remember he joined UoH in 2012, but he always wanted to study in JNU. He tried several times, but last year he finally he managed to get through JNU. He was an active member of our Dalit movement. I still remember when we were socially boycotted and were forced to sleep in a makeshift tent on the campus, he used to visit us daily. This is a great loss to the community.”
However, you will be shocked to know how many of Muthu’s proposals have been rejected and how the caste has played a role here:
A native of Selam, Muthu was always an active participant in political movements and often wrote a lot of thoughts in his blog. However, the question remains. Why did a scholar from UoH, confident about his subject, sent 38 proposals to JNU and still continued to face rejections? Who is the head of this undemocratic selection process? Even amidst the 38 rejections he took up “many menial jobs and saved money like an ant does…”. The process of Viva-Voce as mentioned above is a two stage process based “clearly on merits” which by now most of us fail to believe.
The first stage is a written exam and the second, an oral viva-voce. Out of 100 marks, 70 will be taken from the written test and 30 from the viva for which many students have been requesting to reduce the viva percentage to 15%. Despite all the protests and fights, JNU has made it worse by making the written exam just a qualifying test and the viva will determine the admission which made it unfair.
However, that’s not just it. The viva-voce is that phase of selection where a candidate’s caste will be visible and to filter many of the Dalits, Bahujans and the tribal community, various weighting mechanisms will be implemented to favor the ‘general’ caste. This is why the JNU Students Union has been demanding that the weightage for the Viva Voce be reduced
It might not sound like a big deal to many of us but not everyone is good with English and communication which is the basic skill required for Viva. Talented men like Muthukrishanan who are brilliant in their subjects struggle to get through their Viva-voce. It’s high time we put an end to baseless selective systems!