When Rohith Chakravarti Vemula, a PhD scholar of Hyderabad Central University committed suicide at the beginning of this year, there was a hue and cry about the discriminatory practices that exist on University Campuses across India and these practices are forcing students etc to resort to these drastic steps. Much has been written about this and some other cases that came to light in the wake of this suicide in the press.  However an unstarredquestion asked by MP’s Shri JitendraChaudhury, Shri Rattan Lal Kataria, Shri G. Hari and Dr. Shashi Tharoor (unstarred question No. 845) in Lok Sabha recently has revealed facts that paint a grim picture of these discriminatory practices in the country.  The questions (a) Whether the Government is aware of concerns being raised regarding caste baseddiscrimination and harassment of teachers and students in universities and educational institutions in the country; and(b) if so, the details thereof, State-wise during the last three years and the current year,elicited the fact that Uttar Pradesh led the complaints of atrocity table with 32 complaints and shockingly Karnataka stands 4th on the table with 16.  
According to the UGC data, in the year 2016 the commission received as many as 77 complaints from SC students and 32 from ST Students over caste based discrimination.  Karnataka’s share was 8 from SC students and an equal number from ST students.  This is a matter of grave concern.

The answers provided by Minister of state in the ministry of Human Resource development Dr. MahendraNath Pandey on 21.11.2016 did however reveal that the Government is intent on curbing this menace. The minister in his reply detailed a number of steps that the Government had taken to minimize the incidence of Discrimination.  It listed the following initiatives:

•    The UGC has formulated the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2012 and UGC (Grievance Redressal) Regulations, 2012.

•    The UGC also provides financial assistance to establish the Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy to support focused research on the issue of social exclusion related to dalits, tribal and religious minorities.

•    In order to make the universities/colleges more responsive to the needs and constraints of the disadvantaged social groups, the UGC is giving financial assistance to all eligible Colleges/Universities to establish Equal Opportunity Centres.

•    The UGC Regulations on Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions, 2009, provides for elimination of ragging in all its form from Universities. The UGC has a nationwide round the clock anti-ragging helpline for receiving and tracking complaints of ragging and for various consequential actions in respect of fresh complaints.

•    The UGC has also approved establishment of 126 SC/ST cells in various Universities with a view to safeguard the interests of SC/ST students.

•    Other initiatives include provision of Anti Discriminatory faculty advisors for SC/ST students who look into their problems and advise accordingly, appointment of Student Counsellors to address personal, academic, psychological and family related problems, providing sports and extra curricular activities, setting up counselling centres, provision of anxiety helpline, and setting up disciplinary action committee to take urgent action in case of any complaints of reported ragging, discrimination based on caste, creed, religion and gender etc.

All of these initiatives must be implemented effectively if Karnataka is to emulate zero complaint states in the country.