Hajara Najeeb

Along with the curbing of student rights, right-wing hooliganism is also on the rise on campus.

Ambedkar University Delhi witnessed student protests on March 24 following the suspension of a final-year postgraduate student, Mantahsa, over her criticism of a speech made by the Vice Chancellor during the Republic Day celebrations organized by the university.

Twenty-two years later, Zara Chowdhary will write a memoir of her life and that of her family during those three months and several others preceding them. She will name it “The Lucky Ones”, indicative of the survival her family made, while the unlucky ones made into numbers in government records and eventually into unmarked graves. 

However, this election is significant due to a factor - it is the first Assembly election after the Northeast Delhi Pogrom which took place in February, 2020 following protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. More importantly, it is marked with the candidature of two activists who have been jailed under UAPA alleging them of inciting violence during the protests against CAA and accusing involvement in the pogrom.

On 5 November 2024, two professors from Ambedkar University Delhi—Dr. Salil Misra and Dr. Asmita Kabra—were terminated from their positions, allegedly due to “procedural lapses” in the regularization of 38 non-teaching staff members when they were Pro Vice Chancellor and Acting Registrar, respectively, in 2018.

when the incident was reported on the next day, on November 8th, the context and precedent to the violence was minimised and ignored, with reports emphasising the attack on the Israelis and the alleged increase in antisemitism in Europe.