MIDS prof stages hunger strike alleging caste discrimination

Professor C Lakshmanan said his protest was against the “abuse of power, the arrogance of power, injustice, discrimination and nepotism”. “With utter dismay and anguish, I am expressing my absolute disquiet about the undemocratic governance of our institute,” he said. 

He said he had explored all possible ways to resolve the problems but in vain. “Therefore, I have decided to fight against the lack of democracy and non-transparency in institutional governance through other democratic means available to me,” he said. 

According to Lakshmanan, he had brought the issues of discrimination and nepotism to the notice of management but the administration failed to resolve them. 

He also alleged discriminatory treatment of faculty members and staff, non-compliance of rules and regulations, callousness towards the PhD programme, caste discrimination towards Schedule Caste members in service, non-transparency in the administration among others. 

He also asked the management to include assistant and associate professors in the Governing Council, executive council, and financial committee, and the department heads in the governing council. 

Other demands included making monthly faculty meetings mandatory, reconstituting the golden jubilee celebration committee and constitution of staff grievance redressal committee. 

Following this, the institute management organised an emergency meeting with faculty members in the afternoon. But it denied Lakshmanan’s allegations and maintained there was no misuse of power or caste discrimination as alleged.