There has been, in the last two years, a constant rise in student unrest across universities in India. From the agitations in University of Hyderabad (HCU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) at the start of 2016, till now, there has been no break (or should I say respite) from this.

In all the cases, invariably, it is the State which has acted as an instigator and adversary, and it seems like the State does not want universities to function comfortably, and is thus disallowing students from pursuing academic endeavours as they see fit and keeping them in a state of constant strife.

This is achieved through several mechanisms that the State constructs and unleashes, through institutions such as the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) and University Grants Commission (UGC), in the form of policies, and through administration in public universities which take orders from the State.

One instance that keeps coming to mind, given how glaring it is, is the steady lowering of funds allocated by the State in the field of education in each Union Budget. This manifests itself in many ways, for instance the discontinuation of non-NET fellowship for PhD scholars, which creates a considerable void in the field of research – without economic security, it becomes nigh impossible for scholars to continue with research.

At the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), these issues appear in myriad forms. There was the suspension of the OBC scholarship in 2015, then there has been a considerable fee hike which has made prospective students from vulnerable socioeconomic backgrounds wary about applying in TISS.

The recent protests which have been organised by TISS students and which have resonated across all four campuses – Mumbai, Hyderabad, Tuljapur and Guwahati – have been a culmination of several causes, and sparked off by the cancellation of the Government of India-Post-Matriculation Scholarship (GoI-PMS).

This has put students from several marginalised communities in a precarious position; without the scholarship, these students will not be able to meet their expenses and as a result will be forced to leave the university. This shows a lapse in the ethics of TISS – how do we, as a university, promise to reimagine future by endangering them?

I would like to bring out a particular instance from the happenings on the morning of February 21 – while sloganeering was on during a protest in the administration block, we were reminded that placements were also underway at the same moment, and that our methods were hampering them.

The question that came to mind was – who will be taking the placements if we cannot study? How will students get placed if several of them have to leave?

At this point, it becomes important to point out that while the movement has been sparked off by the GoI-PMS fiasco, this particular issue is part of a larger problem plaguing our university, like any other university in India.

We got to know from our PhD scholars that funds are a constant problem for them, thus hampering their ability and willingness to conduct research. Another problem with TISS for the longest time is that the structure is too centralised – all funds come through Mumbai to all other campuses, and even organisational power, in the form of the Students’ Union and a Teachers’ Association, is present only in Mumbai.

This leads to the “off-campuses” being disadvantaged in the process of decision-making – other than decisions taken at the level of the UGC and MHRD, we also have to bend to the will of the administration in Mumbai for several issues.

As a student, while I can vouch for the fact that the Students’ Union has been working considerably well and takes us all into cognisance – that there is not a lack of organisation and unity among us now, especially at this hour – I cannot say so for the entire system.

Many of our teachers are also in a vulnerable position, because they are all contractual employees. This means that after the short, stipulated period their contracts might just not be renewed, and to be realistic, this does not leave them with many options when it comes to taking independent decisions without being wary of the consequences.

The absence of a Teachers’ Association in the off-campuses does not help the issue. Given that they are burdened by the lack of security in their careers, this hampers the entire process. It also does not allow us to retain them in case they get better opportunities.

By revealing all these issues, I want to point to the larger structural issue within which this problem is formulating – privatisation of education under a neoliberal ethic of competition. We are slowly turning education into a market, where those who can pay shall avail of it, and those who cannot, shall be denied.

We are silently watching, as a system is being created which turns the act of education into a field of competition – where the teacher is constantly “evaluated” and is subject to the scrutiny of the sort of system that will replace them the moment they feel the need to.

This will only result in an atmosphere where teaching becomes more of a job, where teachers are reduced to mere “employees” who have to be increasingly mindful of how and what their “employers” and the “market” demand, and where they cater to the need of students-turned-“customers”.

This will only ensure a society where education does not reach everyone, where introspection and critical thinking in education become a thing of the past, and where we will facilitate the creation of an uncritical, unthinking society.

A democracy where the citizen does not know how to ask difficult and nuanced questions of the State doesn’t remain a democracy at all. As a student of the social sciences, and as someone who wishes to remain in the field of research and study for the rest of my life, I implore everyone to think of these protests in the larger scheme of things, and look at the implications.

There hasn’t been a better moment, or a more dire hour, when we, not only as students but as concerned citizens, should come together to save our right to education, and the system of education itself, before it falls apart completely.