HYDERABAD: The Centre’s decision to discontinue the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) has come as a shock for minority students who have started their PhDs in Central and State universities in Telangana.“I was hoping to spend the fellowship on my project and bring out decent work. And I know for a fact, that it has become very difficult for me to do that,” said Amal Jose Philip, a 25-year-old research scholar in the University of Hyderabad.
Students of various universities, including UoH and MANUU, staged a protest on Friday against the Centre’s decision. They burnt an effigy of Union Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani as she revealed the decision in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. Since the MANF scheme overlaps with various other fellowship schemes for higher education, the government has decided to discontinue it, Irani said. MANF was formulated for Muslim, Sikh, Parsi, Buddhist, Christian, or Jain candidates.
“Even if they overlap, students won’t get two fellowships. An OBC Muslim might get a scholarship for OBC and MANF at the same time. However, she can avail only one,” Amal said. “By cutting down MANF, we are reducing 1,000 fellows per year. That also means 1,000 fewer minority students in the research community,” he added. There is no other fellowship available, especially for minority students.
“If fellowships overlap, what is the point in scrapping it altogether? It’s like amputating the entire leg for having a small injury in the foot,” Loni Das, a member of the All India Students Association, said. “The government wants to silence minority students, especially Muslims because it knows that they will criticize it,” she added.
The protesters fear that MANF is just the starting point and the government will soon scrap other fellowships for other weaker sections. As per the data available on the Ministry of Minority Affairs website, after the formation of Telangana, 30 slots allocated to Andhra Pradesh were split into two and divided among the States.
Only 15 students from Telangana are availing of the scholarship since then. Among them, 14 were Muslims and one was Sikh in 2014-15. While in 2015-16 and 2016-17, 13 Muslim and two Christian students availed of the fellowship. Similarly, a lot of Muslim students secure fellowship across the country, the data says. The rules of the fellowship were later changed and UGC NET was made mandatory for it.