Telangana students show how a protest is done

However, there is no Chancellor or full-time V-C at present. Rahul Bojja, who is a secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office, is holding additional charge as V-C for the last two years.

Students of the RGUKT perform yoga during the sixth day of their protest demanding infrastructure and faculty in Nirmal district on Sunday. (File Photo)

Students of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT), known as IIIT-Basara, in Telangana’s Nirmal district, have proved that there is no need to resort to violence to make the government fall in line. After a week of sustained agitation despite torrential rain one day and scorching sun on the other, the government blinked, conceding all their 12 demands.

They included the most basic, like a full-time Vice-Chancellor, better living conditions on the campus and decent infrastructure for studies. The government was initially adamant. Education Minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy even termed the demands “silly”. The administration used all the tricks in the book to suppress the agitation, like evicting the students from the campus, not allowing their parents inside, and cutting off power and water supply.

After the state’s bifurcation in 2014, IIIT-Basara remained no one’s baby. As a result, its National Assessment and Accreditation Council ranking went down to a ‘C’, the lowest among all the 15 universities in the state. Hardly any campus recruitment takes place there anymore. It was conceived in 2008 with the intention of taking engineering education closer to students from rural areas. Prof D Raj Reddy of Carnegie Mellon University was appointed as its first Chancellor and Prof V R Rajkumar was its first Vice-Chancellor. However, there is no Chancellor or full-time V-C at present. Rahul Bojja, who is a secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office, is holding additional charge as V-C for the last two years.

There is no justification for the inordinate delay in the appointment of a full-time VC and director for the university. Even before the NAAC lowered the ranking, it reportedly advised the appointment of a full-time V-C but the counsel fell on deaf ears. The proposal to make the chief minister the Chancellor for all universities by stripping the Governor of the responsibility, a la West Bengal, would not have come in the way of the appointments. Whatever the reason, students should not suffer. The students deserve praise for their victory.