What is Happening in BBAU is Happening Everywhere! Pondicherry Univ Students Demand Justice for Lucknow Dalit PhD Scholar

Pondicherry – In a bold act of inter-campus solidarity against institutional casteism, the Bahujan Students Front (BSF) at Pondicherry University has issued a scathing statement denouncing the expulsion of Basant Kumar Kannaujiya, the Dalit PhD scholar from Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) in Lucknow.

The declaration, circulated widely on social media and among student networks, accuses BBAU's administration of enforcing "Manu's laws" under the guise of discipline in an institution named after Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. BSF stands "firmly with Kannaujiya," portraying his ouster as punishment for his unyielding Ambedkarite advocacy and refusal to "bend" as a first-generation Dalit scholar, vowing to prevent him from joining the tragic roster of Bahujan lives lost to campus bigotry.

The unjust expulsion

The unfolding crisis at BBAU traces back to September 17, when campus tensions over student welfare boiled over into unrest, culminating in an inquiry that singled out Kannaujiya, a History PhD candidate, as the ringleader of alleged mob instigation, vandalism, and a breach into the Vice Chancellor's office. Despite his rebuttal framing the events as non-violent dialogue with officials and highlighting his decade-plus of peaceful Bahujan rights activism since 2012, the Disciplinary Committee relied on witness accounts, and a history of 14 prior misconduct notices to endorse expulsion.

Vice Chancellor Raj Kumar Mittal finalized the order around November 19, effectively banning Kannaujiya from the premises and future enrollment. In defiance, he initiated a constitutional dharna outside the administrative building, now in its second week as of November 27, where he persists in calling for justice, educational equity, and an end to caste-based harassment. The standoff has escalated with the university issuing warnings to supporters, for joining the sit-in, alongside directives to department heads to curb participation, tactics Kannaujiya labels as "mental torture" to mute dissent.

BSF's statement frames the expulsion not as administrative routine but as "caste violence etched on official letterhead," where labeling Kannaujiya a "habitual offender" masks efforts to quash his dignified existence in a space perceived as a "caste preserve." It catalogs the familiar arsenal deployed against Bahujan resistors, expulsions, rustications, sham probes, hostel evictions, smear campaigns, and psychological siege, echoing the suicides of Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University, Payal Tadvi at Mumbai's Topiwala Medical College, Muthu Krishnan at JNU, Darshan Solanki at IIT Bombay, Fatima Latheef at IIT Madras, Dr. Anitha all felled by unrelenting institutional hostility for daring to claim space with self-respect.

"Every classroom humiliation, reservation taunt, scholarship denial, rigged grading, and expulsion whispers the same casteist edict: Know your place under the Hindu hierarchy," the statement asserts, refusing to plead for clemency from "casteist Hindutva administrators" with a track record of shattering Bahujan aspirations. " What is happening in BBAU is happening everywhere in IITs, IIMS, NITS, AIIMS, central universities and elite institutes across the country. Whenever Dalit, Adivasi, OBC and minority students speak up, organise, or demand dignity, they are systematically isolated and pushed out", the statement further reads.

The Front's demands are unequivocal: Kannaujiya's unconditional reinstatement, a public apology coupled with compensation for his ordeal, accountability for the culpable administrators and faculty, and the overhaul of grievance mechanisms into a "genuine, independent, Bahujan-led" system to supplant toothless cells.

They insist on an FIR under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against those who "criminalized" him, decrying the episode as a toxic fusion of "Hindutva and Brahminical forces" that entrench caste atrocities and Islamophobia across academia. BSF urges Ambedkarite students, organizations, and allies nationwide, from IITs and IIMs to NITs, AIIMS, and central universities, to coalesce in resistance, declaring: "We will not let another Rohith happen. We will not lose another Payal, another Muthu, another Darshan. Not again. Not ever. Reinstate Basant Kumar Kannaujiya now. End casteism in universities."