Ignored for Months on Attendance Rules, Iron Gates and Fee Hikes, Delhi's Ambedkar University Students Now Hit the Streets

New Delhi- Students and Ph.D. scholars of Dr B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) have escalated their agitation against the university administration. In a memorandum dated September 28, the AUD Students' Council (AUDSC) submitted a five-point demand charter to the Vice Chancellor, the Dean of Academic Affairs and the Registrar. The memorandum says students and scholars tried for a long time to reach the administration through various means "to no avail", and that they were therefore forced to take up "mass resistance and protest".

Students are protesting the mandatory attendance and gathering-restriction circulars, the iron gates that have cut off much of the campus, poor scholar infrastructure, the withdrawal of the Ph.D. fee waiver, and the lack of student representation in decisions that affect them.

The students allege that the AUD Administration has time and again imposed policies on Ph.D. scholars without taking them onboard. No due process of consultation with the scholars and students exists, despite the fact that since March 2025, a students’ council has been constituted and another one is in tenure from April 2026.

Circulars that triggered the agitation

The memorandum says the first demand is a complete rollback of two circulars issued on July 31, 2026. One, titled "Attendance-cum-Whereabouts", made attendance registration mandatory for all Ph.D. scholars. The other, an advisory on public gatherings, required students to seek permission four days in advance for any form of gathering on campus.

Ph.D. scholars responded by forming a Joint Action Committee (JAC) on August 2, 2026, to raise their concerns about the attendance policy across all AUD campuses. A mass-mail campaign demanding withdrawal of the policy followed on August 12. On August 18, students gathered peacefully in front of the campus iron gate and asked for a meeting with the Registrar. A three-member student delegation met the Registrar but received no proper response from the university, according to the memorandum. Similar peaceful gatherings by Ph.D. scholars continued, aimed at negotiating the terms of the policy and raising research-related concerns.

With no concrete response from the administration, AUDSC called a protest at the Kashmere Gate (KG) campus on September 22, against what it called the arbitrary imposition of the policy. The protest saw mass participation. Two days later, on September 24, the administration issued a notification saying the attendance policy was on abeyance "till further notification" because of limited space. Scholars stress that neither Ph.D. scholars nor Ph.D. councillors were consulted before the July 31 circular was issued.

The students reject the idea that the policy is merely on hold. They want it rolled back immediately for current and future batches of Ph.D. scholars. They also want the gathering advisory withdrawn, calling it "completely antithetical to the idea of a university". The memorandum argues that student organisations and cultural societies have always used university space judiciously, and that disciplinary committees already exist to deal with any vandalism.

End the "Iron Gates Regime"

The second demand concerns the iron gates installed on campus last year. The memorandum says they have taken more than half the campus away from students and blocked their ability to raise demands in a way that reaches the administration. Closing the main gate has also increased the vulnerability of gender minorities, who must now use the side gate on the route via Madarsa Road, which the memorandum says poses serious safety and security risks.

The students say the campus has been "brutally truncated", turning a once lively and beautiful space into a prison, and that some students are withdrawing their admissions because their hopes have been belied. They demand immediate dismantling of all iron gates and student access through the university's main gate.

Demand for safe and functional infrastructure for scholars

Scholars say the demand for proper space and infrastructure is long pending. They note that while many universities provide residential arrangements for research scholars, AUD has had none since its founding in 2008. Many scholars have no accommodation base in Delhi and spend large parts of their stipends and scholarships on travel and lodging.

The memorandum also lists academic resource shortcomings: erratic internet, disrupted online journal subscriptions and, in its words, "the literal absence of a roof" in the campus library. It describes the state of the scholars' rooms on three campuses:

Kashmere Gate: The scholars' room is in a basement that reportedly leaks profusely whenever it rains. It can hold only about 20 scholars at maximum capacity, against more than 200 scholars enrolled in courses taught on this campus.

Karampura: The room is seldom functional and reeks of dampness, which scholars say invites respiratory disease. It sits next to the exhaust of a commercial restaurant. Air conditioning was made functional only about a week ago. It has just 14 cabins for around 80 scholars.

Lodhi Road: The room does not have basic usable furniture such as tables and chairs.

The administration has set up an infrastructure grievance redressal committee, but with no student representation. Scholars demand immediate cognisance, functional and safe scholars' rooms on all campuses, and that half of the committee be made up of elected councillors from UG, PG and Ph.D. courses.

Reinstate the Ph.D. fee waiver

The fourth demand concerns a notification dated February 20, 2026, which said the fee waiver would not be available to scholars in any AUD programme from the 2026-27 academic year. The notification refers to the 54th Board of Management (BoM) meeting of January 12, 2026, where agenda item 54.6 dealt with rationalising the fee waiver policy.

According to the memorandum, the BoM justified discontinuation by saying Ph.D. scholars receive fellowships such as the Ph.D. Non-NET stipend, the AUD Merit Research Fellowship (AUDMRF) and UGC-funded JRF/SRF, and are therefore "placed at a materially different financial position" from UG and PG students. It also said the waiver "overlaps" with fellowship benefits and does not align with principles of financial prudence and equitable distribution of institutional support. The waiver was discontinued for scholars across all social categories and income levels, but continues for those already admitted.

Scholars challenge this on five grounds:

1. With a 10% fee hike for each newly enrolled Ph.D. cohort, the policy wrongly assumes all scholars come from the same position of privilege.

2. Fellowships are meant to strengthen scholars' capacity to do research, and it is a "grave error" to link an entitlement to a scholar's financial standing.

3. Increases in the Non-NET stipend have not kept pace with the fee hikes or national inflation.

4. The administration provides accommodation to only about 10% of scholars, leaving about 90% without it.

5. UGC NET-JRF scholars receive a house rent allowance (HRA), but Non-NET-JRF stipend holders do not. AUDMRF has also been put in abeyance from the 2023 batch, even though it was listed in that batch's Bulletin of Information.

The JAC demands the fee waiver be reinstated for all Ph.D. cohorts, including future batches.

Representation in decisions that affect scholars

The final demand is representation for scholars in all decisions that directly affect them. The memorandum accuses the administration of repeatedly imposing policies without taking scholars on board, with no due process of consultation, even though a students' council was constituted in March 2025 and another has been in tenure since April 2026.

The students allege that the administration has not held an orientation meeting with either of the two elected councils. They also say no funds have been allocated to the treasury of student councils on any of the three campuses, although elections were held in April 2026, and that councillors have been actively obstructed from communicating with the student body. According to the memorandum, this creates distrust between students and the administration.

Through their elected representatives, the students propose that all Council Committee (CC) members from the three campuses be consulted before any policy for Ph.D. scholars is drafted or implemented, and that democratically elected councillors be represented at every level of decision-making that concerns students.

The memorandum concludes with an appeal to the AUD administration to fulfil all five demands and to meet a delegation of Ph.D. councillors to negotiate their terms. As of this report, there is no indication of an official response from the university to the memorandum.

(Vivek Mishra is a postgraduate student of Performance Studies at Ambedkar University Delhi, batch 2025-27).