A Historic Victory for Student Rights - Resisting Political Vendettas in Higher Education
Anuvratty Saxena
THE Supreme Court’s recent judgement setting aside the two-year suspension of dalit PhD scholar Ramadas Prini Sivanandan enrolled at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, marks a historic victory for students’ rights in India. Yet, this hard-won relief – coming after over a year of systemic targeting – cannot obscure the injustice at its core: a thoroughly fabricated case, which was weaponised to crush campus democracy.
From the outset, this was a battle Ramadas should never have had to fight. A first-generation scholar from Wayanad, Kerala, and a Central Executive Committee member of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), he was suspended not for any violation of rules or law, but for the politics of the Progressive Students Forum (PSF) to which he belonged. Formed in 2012, PSF is a students’ organisation that has consistently resisted communalism and majoritarianism in the TISS campuses. With Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan taking charge as the Chairman of TISS in 2022, the message was crystal clear: fall in line with the Hindutva ideology, or be denied access to education. The Supreme Court’s intervention halted this vendetta, but the perverse institutional rot remains.
FAKE CASE
Ramadas is registered for his PhD at the School of Development Studies at TISS, Mumbai. He completed both his Master’s and MPhil degrees from TISS, topped the National Entrance Test (NET) for MA admissions, and is currently a recipient of the National Fellowship for Scheduled Castes (NFSC) awarded by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment – a recognition of his performance in the UGC-NET exam during his PhD.
In April 2024, TISS abruptly suspended Ramadas for two years, accusing him of “anti-national activities” and creating grounds for potential legal action by law enforcement agencies. The suspension was based on three trumped-up charges:
- He participated in the Parliament March, a protest rally organised jointly by student organisations across India, against the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020
- He recommended in a social media post that the documentary Ram Ke Naam must be watched by all
- He was an organiser of Bhagat Singh Memorial Lectures in the TISS campus
Amusingly, TISS also accused Ramadas of "misusing" the institute's name during the Parliament March protest. It said that “posters” of PSF, which promoted the Parliament March, carried the byline “PSF-TISS”. This, it argued, was a violation of the “honour code” of the institute. Ramadas, as a leader of PSF, had purportedly tarnished the name of TISS as the poster had tried to argue that opposition to NEP was an official position of TISS!
When this suspension order was challenged in the Bombay High Court, the bench gave a verdict that shocked the student community across India. It upheld the suspension despite the baseless nature of the allegations. It failed to exercise its writ and displayed a glaring disregard for due process and evidentiary standards. With no evidence in hand, the High Court ruled that the so-called “poster” was indeed a violation of the honour code of the institute. In fact, this was the only count that the High Court used to uphold the suspension order.
The High Court judgement went on to put on record a few more outrageous comments. Two examples must suffice. Firstly, the judgment noted with regard to the political nature of the student protests: “The petitioner may hold any political view of his choice, but so does the Institute.” The reasoning here is, at best, lost. Secondly, the verdict endorsed the argument that students who avail of government fellowships/grants forfeit their right to protest against the government. The bench appeared to have forgotten that public funds are not the private property of any political party; they belong to the people. Above all, by deeming the two-year suspension 'proportionate' and treating the institutional honour code as inviolable, the High Court abdicated its duty to protect fundamental rights, reducing them to mere afterthoughts.
This verdict was immediately challenged in the Supreme Court of India. Senior Advocate S Muralidhar, the former Chief Justice of Orissa High Court and a former Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Delhi High Court, argued the case for Ramadas. The Supreme Court asked the TISS administration to produce evidence to support its allegations, particularly the “poster” that was argued to be violative of the honour code. But TISS spectacularly failed to provide a shred of documentary proof on the said "parcha" or “poster” to substantiate its claim. The fact emerged that there was no such poster. The pyramid of lies collapsed under appropriate judicial scrutiny. The Supreme Court quashed the High Court verdict and ordered an immediate reinstatement of Ramadas as a student of TISS.
This case, once again, exposed the Sangh Parivar's classic Goebbelsian tactic of repeating utter lies until they are accepted as truth. But through a determined legal and political resistance, TISS students forced this machinery of oppression to retreat, proving that even the most powerful political vendettas can be defeated through perseverance, a commitment to struggle, and trust in the rule of law.
Even more egregious was TISS' smear campaign branding Ramadas as "anti-national" for engaging in normal academic and democratic activities, such as recommending that everyone must watch Anand Patwardhan's Ram Ke Naam, a documentary that had previously been screened in TISS itself with all official permissions. What was once legitimate academic material became intolerable to saffron forces simply because it exposed the Sangh Parivar's communal agenda.
The TISS administration further vilified Ramadas for organising Bhagat Singh Memorial Lectures, which featured distinguished speakers like P Sainath, Bezwada Wilson, Gopal Guru, and Hannan Mollah. Under the ongoing saffronisation of education, such academic discussions are branded as seditious; students discussing Bhagat Singh's revolutionary legacy face censorship from ideological descendants of Savarkar, the British apologist.
This case lays bare the reality of Modi's India: critical thinking itself has become an act of subversion. This agenda is particularly threatening the working-classes, dalits, adivasis, women, queer, and minority students who dare to exercise their freedoms and speak truth to power.
INSTITUTIONAL COMPLICITY
The oppressive machinery deployed by TISS against Ramadas exposed systemic institutional abuse. TISS' so-called "Empowered Committee," which recommended his suspension, operated as a kangaroo court. Its members withheld evidence and conducted proceedings in secrecy and opaquely. After suspending Ramadas for two years, the TISS administration escalated its crackdown by banning the Progressive Students' Forum (PSF) in August 2024 and imposing a new "honour code" that prohibited political protests, anti-establishment views, and even open discussions. This new and draconian honour code had to be withdrawn after a massive public outcry and numerous editorials in the national editions of major newspapers.
The Bombay High Court's wrong verdict deepened the injustice by placing TISS' code of conduct norms above the constitutional guarantees of free speech and the right to association enshrined in Articles 19 and 21. By upholding Ramadas' suspension, the High Court established a perilous precedent: that public education and scholarships come with strings of political conformity attached. In this background, Ramadas' appeal petition in the Supreme Court argued that the High Court verdict violated Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution and should be struck down as arbitrary and discriminatory. It argued that such a dangerous precedent would extinguish intellectual independence across Indian universities, rendering dissent against the regime punishable. Rightly so, the Supreme Court stood up in defence of the constitution.
The assault on academic freedom in TISS sparked nationwide resistance. In March 2025, a broad coalition of the civil society – including 27 democratic organisations, prominent writers, activists, and dalit and Left political groups – converged in Mumbai to demand justice for Ramadas. The gathering outside the main gate of TISS served as both a powerful rebuke to TISS' fabricated charges and a condemnation of the High Court's complicity in rubber-stamping this political vendetta.
One must add that the Supreme Court’s April 2025 ruling, while restoring Ramadas’ enrollment, left some critical questions unanswered. It sidestepped the issue of whether institutional codes can override fundamental rights, leaving the door open for future repression of student rights. Yet, the verdict’s essence was undeniable. An injustice had been committed, and it had to stop. The verdict stated: “Without examining the claims and counter-claims on merits, we feel that TISS having suspended the petitioner on 18th April, 2024 and lapsing of more than a year since then, interest of justice would be best served if the order of suspension is not continued further and he be permitted to pursue the PhD course in TISS.” This victory – won through relentless student and civil society resistance – reminds us that even partial legal wins can puncture majoritarian political vendettas.
LARGER ASSAULT ON EDUCATION
Ramadas' case is not an isolated incident. From JNU and Jamia to AMU, AUD, and IIT Bombay, universities and their students are facing systematic persecution and vilification. Suspensions and punitive actions against students merely for asking questions and talking to media, reveal a clear pattern: an attempt to transform India's campuses into Hindutva echo chambers. Yet, despite this repression, students and faculty are bravely continuing their resistance.
Today, the union government is weaponising scholarships like NFSC and JRF as tools of ideological control while branding campus dissent as "anti-national." The TISS honour code epitomises this authoritarian project, creating a draconian framework where protest becomes "misconduct." Such institutional overreach must be challenged relentlessly in judicial and political platforms, for no administrative edict/codes can override the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India.
This new Hindutva model of higher education increasingly relies on suspensions and similar punitive actions to create a climate of fear. Ramadas' victory at the Supreme Court strikes a crucial blow against this authoritarian trend, serving as both a legal precedent and an inspiration to continue the fight for academic freedom.
Ramadas’ return to TISS marks a victory, but the institution remains deeply compromised. India’s higher education institutions will continue to be a battleground where students will keep resisting the assault on dissent. This is particularly so because the BJP’s chokehold on academia is growing tighter: funding cuts bleed public universities dry; ideological purges eliminate critical voices; and the NEP 2020 reshapes education into a Hindutva factory.
The path forward is clear: organised struggle. From the global student uprisings against oppression and complicity to India’s own legacy of student movements, history shouts one truth – justice is never granted. It must be seized. The Supreme Court’s verdict, however inadequate, is a testament to that struggle. The struggle for education as a right – not a privilege – rages on. And its future will be written by those who will dare to speak out loudly when ordered to whisper.
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