Professor quits admin post at University of Hyderabad

Hyderabad: A day after the SC-ST Faculty Forum of University of Hyderabad condemned the varsity’s move of appointing Prof. Vipin Srivastava as the Pro V-C1 of the university, a senior faculty member resigned from his administrative position on Thursday.

Prof. Sripathi Ramudu was head of the Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy. In his letter to the registrar, Prof. Ramudu stated that his conscience did not permit him to continue as head of the centre when the university was creating a hostile and vitiated atmosphere for Dalits.

He wrote that he was the supervisor for one of the four Dalit PhD scholars who were suspended along with Rohith Vemula last year and that he was not even informed by the university of the suspension until the orders were issued.

He alleged that vice-chancellor Prof. Appa Rao Podile had told him and supervisors of the other students to “influence” them in leaving the university campus when the five suspended Dalit scholars had started living in a makeshift tent in the campus after being evicted from their hostel.

Prof. Ramudu added that there were many omissions in the process, culminating to suspension of the five Dalit scholars from hostels, and that his constructive suggestions had been ignored.

A few other faculty members released a statement condemning the appointment of Prof.  Srivastava and demanded that he should accept moral responsibility and step down.

The protests against Prof. Srivastava are due to the 2008 suicide of Senthil Kumar, a Dalit PhD scholar in the Physics department, when Prof Srivastava was dean of the department.