SFI’s Initiative Successfully Resists CITD’s Tactics to Deny Admission to Students!

SFI thanks the student community for rallying behind our initiative to ensure that students who were denied admission to the Centre for International Trade and Development (CITD) on absolutely unjust grounds are given admission in MA. The new admission criteria at CITD says that only those students who have a Bachelor’s Degree with Economics (Honours) with Mathematics as subsidiary subject,  Mathematics (Hons.) with Economics as a subsidary subject, or Statistics (Hons.) with Mathematics & Economics as subsidiary subjects would be eligible for admission to its MA programme. Given the fact that very few universities in India have Honours courses at all, this elitist criteria essentially meant the exclusion of the vast majority of students, including even students who completed BA (Economics) from various universities, from applying to CITD. Nevertheless several students from non-Honours backgrounds had written the entrance exam and cleared it, and the Centre had refused to admit them.

But following the protest on Tuesday (12 August), the administration was forced to give admission to those students who cleared the entrance test after studying economics as one of the core subjects in their under-graduation. This struggle has to be seen in the context where the students were made to run from pillar to post and had to undergo a lot of pain in the process.  Adding to the anti-student approach of the Centre was the apathy shown by JNUSU-SIS Convenor who was informed of this issue on 3 August. But even after coming to know of the issue there was absolute lack of concern from the Convenor. What is equally deplorable is the fact that the JNUSU, which should have taken up the matter, was slack in its approach. When SFI got to know about this injustice being done, we immediately took up the matter with the concerned departments and forced the JNUSU to take up the matter on an urgent basis in the All Organisations meeting called by us on 11 August. A call for protest was suggested to JNUSU in the All-Org meeting. The strength of the united protest by the students against this elitist discrimination ensured that the matter was taken to a logical end. The illogical stand of the Centre to put on hold the registration of students was defeated and four students, who had to face taunts and harassment, were at last allowed to finish their registration process.

This struggle doesn’t end here, as we need to ensure that the anti-student admission criteria which crept into this year’s prospectus are kept out in the next year’s prospectus. After all, the injustice done to all those students who didn’t appear for the entrance exam after seeing the new admission criteria cannot be undone. Let us also not forget that a similar move by the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP) which made it compulsory for students to have studied mathematics at the Plus Two level or during Bachelor’s in order to be eligible for admission had made it impossible for the vast majority of students in various universities in India to apply to the Centre’s MA programme. It had taken several years of efforts by perceptive students in the Centre to get this regressive move reversed.

SFI would like to thank the JNUSU for taking up the issue though it was late. We would also like to thank progressive teachers and officers who stood with us in this struggle. The democratisation of educational institutions is something that the left student movement has always stood for, and we will struggle to ensure that all students, especially those from deprived backgrounds, have the opportunity and resources to pursue higher education. The student community have to be in constant vigil against elitist machinations inside and outside the campus. We pledge to stand should to shoulder with the student community in such struggles.