Tata Institute of Social Sciences’ students, alumni and faculty have raised concerns and condemned the appointment of RM Joshi as Registrar of the Institute. Pointing out his utterly casteist, sexist and Islamophobic statements on social media, a petition signed by more than 1500 students, alumni & faculty has been sent to the Governing Board of TISS demanding revocation of his appointment.

13th September 2020

The appointment of RM Joshi as Registrar of Tata Institute of Social Sciences has met with condemnation from students, alumni and faculty of the Institute. R M Joshi is a very problematic and dangerous person for this important administrative post. He holds and has expressed various bigoted and hateful views regarding Minorities – the Muslims. He also has made sexist remarks on women and stands against reservation for marginalised students. He has expressed hateful views regarding critical democratic voices and supported police brutality on students. 

A petition, to the Governing Board of TISS, demanding revocation of this appointment was initiated. It has been signed by 1568 signatories which includes students, alumni and faculties of TISS. Along with statements from many alumni batches and student collectives, more than 19 current courses of TISS have released a statement raising concerns and demanding revocation of R M Joshi’s appointment.

As noted in the petition, the appointment of RM Joshi gives greater evidence of saffronisation of university campuses by the central government. Appointment of people conforming to extreme hateful majoritarian beliefs on important posts, like in the case of Hyderabad Central University or Jawaharlal Nehru University, has led to violence and intimidation of student voices. His appointment creates an environment of fear in the campus. It also makes the place insecure for people from marginalised backgrounds, especially students from Muslim minority.

Tata Institute of Social Sciences prides itself as an institution that believes in social justice and promotes ideals of equality, freedom and justice. The appointment of RM Joshi raises several questions on the basic principles of the institute. The institute prides itself in social science research, and yet appoints to the powerful position of registrar, a person who doesn’t believe in the basic ideals of social justice, and instead rejects such ideals. This appointment is against the values TISS stands for.

Taking into consideration the concerns raised by students, alumni and faculty, we demand TISS Administration to address these concerns and revoke the appointment of R M Joshi as Registrar of TISS.

Earlier, The Progressive Students’ Forum, TISS wrote an open letter to the Chairman of the Institute opposing his appointment as the new registrar. In the letter the students pointed out that Joshi, who go by @rmjoshi64 on Twitter and @rm.joshi.56 on Instagram, has participated in the “vilification of a particular religious minority community during the COVID-19 pandemic and has made statements against the students who came out on the streets during the nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The students noted that Joshi had commented on social media that India’s failure to produce vaccine is because the “person who got 90% is selling pakodas and a person who got 40% is experimenting in lab,” ridiculing the oppressed SC/ST community and the country’s constitutionally mandated reservation policy. The open letter by the students demanded that the “biased and highly provocative” public statements made by Joshi make him unfit to be appointed as the Registrar of an educational institute.

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(A Copy of the petition along with the signatories is attached for reference.)

PETITION

To,

Governing Board,

Tata Institute of Social Sciences

We the students, alumni and faculty of TISS express our utter discomfort and anger at the appointment of Col RM Joshi as the new Registrar of Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Since the appointment of Joshi many students and faculty have been holding discussions regarding the problematic opinions which have been shared by the newly appointed official on various social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter. The posts clearly point at Islamophobic tendencies and a complete contempt for affirmative action implemented for marginalised sections. His posts also indicate his aversive views against social activism, protests and social movements of the oppressed sections. It is shocking to find that the governing board has agreed for such an appointment without (or after) checking into the background of such an official. 

In the past few years, we have seen how the nature of officials appointed at the top levels of a university can have major implications for the students. As has been visible in JNU, VC having majoritarian, hateful politics, has led to increased militarisation of campus, curbing of democratic space for dissent, increased attacks on students from marginalised sections and open violence on campus by goons affiliated to political parties etc. In HCU, we saw how VC played a role in facilitation of the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula. Such officials have played a critical role in trying to break resistance of students against the forces of Brahmanism, privatisation, communalisation, saffronisation in universities. We fear that the appointment of RM Joshi, given his political opinions, will severely go against the interests of the entire academic community which is already struggling to keep alive the spirit of social justice, freedom of speech and expression and trying to organise constantly to keep hatred, islamophobia, casteism at bay. A university which provides space to the students to study social work, social activism and social movements can’t possibly employ someone as an administrative head, whose attitude is one of bias, hatred, disregard for the principles of social justice, equality and freedom.  

We the undersigned, appeal to the governing board and the TISS administration to look into the concerns raised by students and immediately take cognizance of the danger that is posed by the appointment of such an official whose credentials are completely against the ethos of TISS, against  the spirit of a social science institute and against the interests of the most marginalised.  

We demand that the decision to appoint Col RM Joshi as the Registrar at TISS must be immediately rolled back, and the governing board and administration at TISS must give due space to concerns of the students and initiate inquiry into the same. 

Signatories: