Ashoka Classes move out of AC Rooms to support Workers Protest as Faculty releases a new Petition

On Thursday, 4th September, classes at Ashoka University moved out of air-conditioned rooms and into lawns, corridors, and open-air amphitheatres as students and faculty expressed solidarity with housekeeping staff who have been on strike for over a week. The faculty also released a new petition to demand the withheld salaries of protesting workers. 

For over a week now, the workers have been demanding fair wages and improved working conditions. After negotiations between workers and BluSpring Enterprises failed, 109 students issued an open letter on Wednesday, 3rd September, urging more than 80 faculty members to bring their “classes out of the classroom” to signal that campus life could not be “business as usual”. 

Consequently, at least 25 classes were conducted outdoors the next day, including foundation-course lectures with over 100 students. Two student coordinators told The Edict that the administration deflected their requests for whiteboards and mats by delaying and rerouting them via email. However, with logistical hurdles expected, student-led clubs and societies came forward to pool resources. Sheets were crowdsourced from the student body, a few mattresses were borrowed from the protest site, and classes were relocated to open spaces outdoors.

Poster displayed inside the lift in an Academic Block | Courtesy: Madiha Tariq, The Edict

Faculty Participation

Echoing the students’ letter, faculty members stressed that the move outdoors was intended to sustain teaching rather than suspend it. “It would be a disservice to the act of coming out if the class did not learn,” said Professor Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor of Sociology & Anthropology, who held both her classes outside after the students unanimously agreed. 

Professor Chitralekha, Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies, who shifted her class of more than 100 students, described the decision as a pedagogical necessity: “If I am going to teach media and democracy, how do I talk about Althusser in a neat, sanitised environment when students ask me to come out?”

A class being held outside in the corridor | Courtesy: Atharva Salve, The Edict

Faculty also emphasised that attendance was voluntary. Professor Chitralekha told The Edict that those uncomfortable with attending the class outdoors were granted excused absences. Professor Krittika Bhattacharjee, Head of the Undergraduate Writing Program (UWP), who led a walking seminar across the campus, also noted the importance of exposing students to political contexts without pressuring them to “have the right opinion,” or “participate in a protest.” Her class, themed on religion, instead of pushing students to protest, used the setting to ask questions such as “whether protest can be seen as devotion” and when demands can be considered prayers. 

Several such sections of Introduction to Critical Thinking, the mandatory first-year course offered by the UWP, were also conducted outdoors throughout the day. Kyra*, (UG ‘29) described the experience as “eye-opening,” saying that moving around the campus “evoked the human emotion in her” and helped first-year students like her begin to understand the ongoing campus developments.

At 1:30 p.m., Professor Amit Julka, Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations, also conducted a protest poetry session with students and workers outside Gate 1, after marching there from the atrium. He read resistance poetry, including Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Dua, which, in his words, “gives hope to those fighting structural battles without resources”. 

Workers & students attend Prof. Amit Julka's Protest Poetry session outside Gate 1 | Courtesy: Madiha Tariq, The Edict

Faculty Petition 

As classes moved outside, faculty members also released a petition in the afternoon, condemning reports that salaries of protesting workers had been withheld. Alongside the signature campaign, they are also sending individual emails to the administration, with copies of the petition linked. Signed by over 37 faculty members as of the writing of this article, the petition demanded that the workers’ August wages be disbursed immediately. “For a university that preaches progressive values, this is absolutely shameful,” it read. A source from the faculty told The Edict that Ashoka’s reliance on a repressive third-party contractor, BluSpring Enterprises, is “a moral low” for the university. 

In response, Vice Chancellor Somak Raychaudhury claimed in an email to the faculty at 5:27 p.m. that he had “so far found no evidence that any salaries have been withheld.” However, The Edict has independently verified that protesting workers have not yet received their August salaries, even as their colleagues inside the campus have been paid.

A wider movement

As of now, the protest has grown into a multi-pronged campaign with student-worker sit-ins, outdoor classes and faculty petition(s). On Thursday evening, students launched a coordinated X (formerly Twitter) campaign under #JusticeForAshokaWorkers, mass-posting protest media and solidarity messages. They also staged performances outside Gate 1 at night. Posters across campus now highlight not only the workers’ three core demands but also broader calls for student-worker unity and a larger re-imagination of the Ashokan ethos. Ahmad Hashmi* (UG ‘27), a student who spoke to the Edict, alleged, “this is not an isolated issue,” linking the workers' struggle to a year-long pattern of administrative “indifference.” He cited the cases of recent residence-life policy changes and the university’s unaligned stance during Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad’s arrest earlier this year. 

Courtesy: Madiha Tariq, The Edict

As the sit-in continues and negotiations stall, the protests have grown into a campus-wide movement, drawing together workers, students and faculty to question the university’s commitments to the values it professes.

*Pseudonyms have been provided to these individuals to preserve their anonymity. 

[With inputs from on-ground correspondents, Ishaan Varior and Somansh Sarangi] 

[Edited by Tanush Guha and Somansh Sarangi]