March 5th, 2013, 6:30pm, meeting with engaged students and faculty

    The meeting was meant to apprise of the current situation within the campus from the perspective of the concerned students and faculty members. It was attended by about a dozen students, about eight faculty members and a couple of other community members. 

    The first presentation was given by the students. While much of the issues related to contract labour have been noted in detail elsewhere, we were disturbed to learn of the discouragement students met from academic members and administration when they tried to engage themselves. We listened to experience of a young student who was cornered by the wardens and forced to write an apology which they worded. We also learned of an advisor warning a student to keep away not merely for the sake of the student’s thesis but also for the sake of the advisor’s promotion. It was apparent that instead of evolving into an open university with freedom of ideas and expressions IIT Kanpur was evolving into a much regimented setup, unhealthy for all its members.

    We were nevertheless enthused by the numbers and the courage of the students present there. We also learnt about the recent resolution of the Open house organized by Faculty Forum, and attended by about two hundred community members, which does aim at a correction to this discourse. 

    This was followed up by a presentation apprising of the present conditions at the construction work sites. While recent deaths within the campus and the community pressure has led to availability of more safety resources, both their quality and relevant training is missing. We saw pictures of broken shoes, ineffective helmets, wrongly tied belts, open electric connections amongst others -- all taken in a last few months, some as recently as a week back. We also learnt how dangerous it was -- a belt tied in the wrong way would kill the worker by snapping his ribs rather than saving him. As seemed to be amply clear through several examples, the key reason is that the safety practices are meant to save the administration and contractors in wake of an accident rather than coming out of any real concern for safety.