"Mazdoor Ekta Zindabaad": Housekeeping Workers' Protest continues on Day 2

On Friday, 29th August 2025, the strike by the Housekeeping staff continued outside the main gate of Ashoka University. The workers, joined by the Ashoka University Student Government (AUSG) and other students, continue to hold onto their 3 demands. The AUSG held an open meeting on the same day to further discuss the protests.

Workers have been outside the gate over than 48 hours as of writing, and have been joined by their family members. At various points during the day, workers and students were recorded, without their consent, by people who claimed they were “following orders” and justified it as occurring in a public place. While students were given access to the washrooms outside, workers were denied the same and had to relieve themselves by going to the nearby fields.

Around 2 p.m., a female worker had trouble breathing and had to be taken to the infirmary on the campus. Later, a fellow worker said that her chest pain was triggered by fear and anxiety.

A little later, Advocate Kapil Balyan, who had also initially represented Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad at the Sonipat district court earlier this year, addressed the workers and assured them that their sit-in was completely legal. He instructed them to film any threats made by the administration as proof to be used in legal proceedings. He also added that his legal team will support the workers at all stages of the court proceedings. “Hum aapke sath tan, man aur dhan se khade hai,” (We stand with you with mind, body and money), Balyan concluded.

Just 6 p.m., a 4-person delegation representing Bluspring Enterprises/Quess Corp. came outside the gate, wanting to only address their “employees”. The delegation comprised Santosh Parmar, Head of Recruitment for Quess Corp, who led the conversation with the protesting workers, and also featured Manish Khatri, Quess Facilities Manager. Parmar repeatedly insisted that (Bluspring) management would be willing to listen to any problems faced by the workers; however, they did not give a concrete timeline, nor did they verbally agree to any of the workers’ demands, with Parmar repeatedly citing that workers were being paid according to Haryana’s minimum wage rules. 

As several workers raised the question of supervisors' constantly seeing much higher wages and/or salary increases, Parmar replied saying that there are different kinds of workers - unskilled workers who are uneducated, semi-skilled workers who have some schooling, and skilled workers who are graduates - which is the reason behind the gaps in salaries. Parmar assured the gathering that there would be "merit tests" of employees higher up in the hierarchy to reduce their salaries if necessary. Later on, he added that workers should individually complain to the managers, HR, and recruitment team if they faced any issues, and requested them to return to their assigned duty stations and stop the protest. Nearly all the protesting workers remained at their site of protest after the interaction. At 7PM, the Bluspring delegation again emerged to reiterate their urge for workers to return to their posts and discuss their grievances through "formal mechanisms", which was met by a similar response of disapproval by the on-strike workers.

The Ashoka administration has not yet acknowledged or communicated with the protesting workers, with the only official communication being the email sent out by the Dean of Student Affairs (DSA), Dr. Dheeraj Sanghi, on 28th August. In the email, the DSA informed students about the Workers Grievance and Welfare Committee, which accepts grievances from any worker. However, many people are unaware of such a body existing, and some find it “defunct and absolutely useless”. 

An open meeting was organized by the some concerned students at 7:30PM, in order to update and brief the wider student body and faculty members about the ongoing developments with reference to the workers’ protest.

A student at the open meeting mentioned that Bluespring Enterprises is a subsidiary of Quess Corp, whose founder and Managing Director, Ajit Isaac, is also an Ashoka founder and part of the Advisory Board for the Issac Centre for Public Policy (ICPP). Isaac is also a key funder of the centre, which is named after him. The contract between Ashoka University and Bluespring, the student said, has raised a question of conflict of interest with Isaac also being a stakeholder in the university. 

Students conducting the meeting urged to the gathered students that the strike was not arbitrary and the conditions of the workers, citing sexual harassment cases and poor working conditions, had been simmering for years before the start of the strike. Quoting cases of sexual harassment and a First Information Report (FIR) at Rai police station against Manish Khatri, Quess Facilities Manager, they said that no action was taken against Khatri, who continues to be employed at the university. Instead, the woman worker who filed the case against Khatri resigned from Ashoka University. In her termination letter, it was mentioned that the FIR against Khatri was “false and baseless”.

The meeting also revealed the appalling conditions of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, where they were cramped into small rooms with no safety gear or other mechanisms to prevent contracting the virus. 

The student also mentioned an Experiential Learning Module (ELM) conducted by Young India Fellows (YIF) in 2020 called VittaVaran. The ELM found that many female workers were asked to come to an isolated place 10 km away from Sonipat with their PAN card and Aadhar card for financial assistance in May 2020. Each worker was asked to meet four men in a room individually and was made to sign their thumbprint on documents in English that they could not read or understand. They signed the documents and received cheques, only to later learn that they were resignation letters. The Edict’s reportage from 2022 shows that the then Vice-Chancellor Malabika Sarkar and the university administration were unaware of these forced resignations. 

After the Open Meeting, students marched to join the protestors outside, where several workers gave further testimonies about their current situation(s). As of writing, the protest has continued overnight for a second straight day, with both workers’ and students in solidarity continuing their sit-in protest just outside Gate 1 of the university premises.

(Edited by: Somansh Sarangi, Anamta Husain & Fatema Tambewalla) (Fact Checked by: Tanush Guha)