Committee पे Committee: The Ashokan Handbook

This summer in Ashoka was more eventful than any– with unilateral policy decisions, unjust suspensions, and mold (lot and lot of it), I imagine the administration working day and night. 

However, amongst all the anger, rage and frustration felt by the student community, I felt a persistent sense of deja-vu. Everything felt like a flashback: the registrar sends an email over the break, then comes a petition, some social media stories, a Google Meet Student Government open-meeting, ‘formal’ email exchanges, and finally, a Dean of Student Affairs (DSA)/ Vice-Chancellor reply. It was almost like it was coming out of a handbook. This pomp and procedure handbook is what I call: How to Fool Students — a Step-by-Step Guide. 

The Ashokan administration seems to be working overtime to follow this handbook everywhere— from workers’ rights to student mental health policies. This is my interpretation of the handbook, and I wish for everyone to think more deeply on this, and find more, or better, patterns. 

Step 1: Take a nonsensical, unilateral, authoritarian step without consulting any relevant committee, let alone students. 

Sounds so familiar, right? But wait, allow me to show you. Everyone remembers the scanners and how they were installed with no student consultation. Let alone consultation with the Ashoka University Student Government (AUSG), the Committee Against Disciplinary Infractions (CADI) whose mandate is to create a “safe and supportive space” was also kept in the dark. If the entire point was that substance abuse has gotten to a dangerous level, with potential for escalated indiscipline and violence, then the most relevant body had to be the University’s Discipline Committee (CADI). 

Second example: a few days before campus closed for the summer, the Registrar had unilaterally revoked the cross-access privileges of students after repeated infractions. This was done without any discussion, let alone the approval of CADI, the body responsible for such disciplinary action. 

This does not end here. While the new Residence Life Policy merits an entire other article, one major cause of concern is for the policy of room inspection. A new provision under the policy strictly prohibits use of any electronic device during the inspection: “Any attempt to record, photograph, or communicate externally during an inspection will be considered a violation of residential policies and may lead to disciplinary action.” For these new policies, no consultation with the Students Grievance Redressal Committee (which has not begun its tenure yet) has been made. This is especially appalling as there is documented student concern regarding alleged random violating room inspections and its misuse by authorities. 

Ironically, under the redressal section, there is not one mention of the Committee. Students who wish to appeal have to do so to the Dean of Student Affairs, and not the Committee they formed to address such a situation. Coincidence much?

Step 2: When students (rightfully) protest, pacify them by forming a committee.

This might sound like ancient history, but remember the academic freedom protests in August 2023? Guess what came out of that: Committee for Academic Freedom. What happened after the protest on caste census you may ask: Equal Opportunity Cell. The surprising outcome after the protests against scanners: a standing committee. Now, after the workers’ protest on campus, we see the (re)birth of the Workers Grievance and Welfare Committee. It is as if the article writes itself. 

Committees often emerge as protestors’ own demands — the Committee for Academic Freedom or the Anti-Discrimination Cell (formalised as the Equal Opportunity Cell) being prime examples. Once the administration promises such a body, protests pause in the hope that it will be representative, equal, and most importantly functional. Other times, it is the administration that deploys this “committee solution”. 

Regardless of who demands it, the committee almost always serves as a relief strategy rather than a solution. Even during the Scanners’ Protest in January 2025, it was the Vice-Chancellor who proposed student involvement in the standing committee during the open meeting. 

During protests, any proposal for equitable dialogue is welcomed, and students approach it with genuine enthusiasm and urgency to reach a solution. But it almost never ends that way (more on this in Step 3). In a mail by Campus Life Ministry dated May 4th, 2025, the ministry highlighted that the protest was suspended in the assurance that the committee formed would be just and equal: “We suspended our protest in good faith, relying on the assurance that student representatives would be treated as equal participants in the committee’s deliberations.” It took an entire workers’ protest for the DSA to reveal the functioning of the Workers’ Grievance and Welfare Committee. On the very first day, Dean of Student Affairs, Professor Dheeraj Sanghi sent an email writing about its existence, almost as a pacifier.

Step 3: Delay the committee as much as you can and pray to God that everyone forgets about the protest.

The third step is by far the most important. Political fatigue is real, and we can see it in action. In an interview with The Edict, Yuvaraj R, the former student representative for Equal Opportunity Cell (AY 2024-2025) from the PhD cohort, who has been elected again this year, called the election timing a big contention. The announcement of the formation of the cell came in March 2024, after a week-long protest on campus. However, the Office of Student Affairs took the entire Monsoon Semester 2024 (August - December) to prepare and launch the election. “So effectively, we could only start our operation in January of Spring Semester 2025.”  Not only does this strategy incapacitate the body as the committee operates for only half the time it should be, but also puts an effective roadstop in the activism. One just keeps on waiting and waiting.  

Urja Hansraj, former Campus Life Minister (AY 2024-2025) echoed the same sentiment regarding the Standing Committee. She informed The Edict that when the four student representatives for the Standing Committee met its chair, Professor Bhaskar Dutta, for the first time, he gave them a brief overview and provided them with a three week timeline. Hansraj said, “We were relieved that student concerns are going to get immediate attention and our feedback would be treated with urgency.” However, what transpired after that was nothing urgent. As the students prepared comprehensive documents regarding Ashokan culture, campus enhancement and mental health recommendations, the committee continued to focus “only on punitive measures regarding security”. To complicate matters further, instead of addressing the issue within the existing committee, the administration carved out a separate sub-committee “for the students”—comprising four student representatives and three faculty members: Professors Jonathan Gill Harris, Srinath Raghavan, and Arunava Sinha. As Urja explained, “The official purpose of this sub-committee was to draft a proposal compiling all student concerns and recommendations. But in practice, it became the only space where students were allowed to speak. All liaison with the full committee rested solely with the professors, which left us as mere spectators”.

Ultimately, a matter which was to be resolved in 3 weeks took the entire semester, and then also to no student relief or satisfaction (more on this in step 4). When I asked Urja, do you think the promise of student representation and consultation was even remotely fulfilled, she replied– point blank– “No, absolutely not”. 

This issue was seen again this year with the election of the Students' Grievance Redressal Committee. The announcement for the committee was sent out on March 11th, 2025 by the Vice Chancellor, listing all the faculty and administration members joining it. However, the announcement for student nomination took 2 months with voting for the election scheduled on May 9th. My question to the administration is this: if the entire committee was formed and communicated to the student body in March, why did the university wait two months to hold student elections, that too scheduling them in the middle of examination week according to its own calendar?

Such amnesia surrounds committees that they collapse into little more than paper formalities. Housekeeping staff recall their issue being “resolved within five minutes,” with only one member from the admin present. Experiences like these make clear what committees are really up to: absolutely nothing. 

Step 4: Don't listen to the students in the committee you proposed and delay all action.

The mistreatment, malignment, and abuse of students in the standing committee is well documented by the Campus Life Ministry. The representatives were let in late, let out early, and had no voting rights. How are they, then, members of this committee? Far from equitable discussion, the student members or their suggestions had no say – “We were simply bombarded with conclusions, rather than engaged in any form of collaborative discussion.”

Today, the students have been removed from the committee with none of their policies implemented, the scanners have been re-instated and escalated to include almost all items, and the Vice-Chancellor now holds the final say. A promise the VC made in front of 250+ Ashokans (including faculty) to include students in all policies related to them has been repeatedly, consciously and unapologetically discarded. Committee enough? 

This level of deliberate inaction is currently ongoing in the Committee Against Sexual Harassment (CASH) as well. In an email from Student Government to the student body, it highlights the “systemic dysfunction" of CASH, especially its failure “to uphold and protect students’ rights.” CASH has not yet implemented the “CASH Reforms Proposal”, developed by the previous Statutory Bodies Committee (2024-25), and submitted to relevant authorities on April 23rd, 2025. According to the AUSG, “there has been no official communication or update since the submission of this document”. 

The new CADI policy on committee forums which allows meetings to begin without a single student representative is as ironic as it is deliberate. It strips the committee of its most engaged members, and reduces students — the very constituency it is meant to serve— to mere afterthoughts. A sliver of hope is that AUSG has been promised that this policy will change.

Another example of neglecting students and taking no action is found in the Anti Ragging Committee. Just last semester, when a north-eastern student faced racial abuse at the Ashoka Premier League (APL) and approached the Anti-Ragging Committee, the representative told him that “they [ARC] were not the right space to bring this issue” and advised him to “file a complaint elsewhere”.

Step 5: Repeat Step No. 1

“Gate Bandhi” and the unjust suspension and firing of workers at Ashoka are all examples of unilateral and authoritarian steps. New mental health policies, new NOC policies, new discipline policies, new protest policies — all rolled out without any proper channel or process. 

Whenever Ashoka has raised its voice against authoritarian diktats, we have been offered the joke of a so-called ‘democratic’ committee. As we accept the Workers Grievance and Welfare Committee, we must remember this pattern. 

What makes it worse is the clear effect on students this pattern has: set up a phantom committee, then take the actual decision elsewhere. When students approach these committees to address a grievance, everyone already knows the truth — the committee has no power, because the decision was never made by any committee. There is no formal policy, no due process, only diktat. 

This article does not have the answer to how to stop this. Frankly, I myself don’t know. But, a whistle must be blown. I am laying the mechanism bare for everyone to see and understand in the hope that the next student movement does not suffer the same fate as the last. In her book The Shape of the Beast (2008), Arundhati Roy writes—serendipitously in a work about state and corporate power: “Only the very young or the very naïve believe that injustice will disappear just as soon as it has been pointed out. But sometimes it helps to outline the shape of the beast in order to bring it down”.

My message to the administration is simple: If Ashoka calls itself a university, it must act like one and not like a corporate boardroom, no matter who signs the cheques.

(Edited by Madiha Tariq and Nikita Bose)