 The Pondicherry University administration has debarred 11 students from entering the campus and to take admissions for a period of 5 years. The students are also served with a fine of rupees 10,000 each. What did these students do? Why are they met with such severe punishments? The students are punished for participating in a protest nearly two years ago as part of the fee must fall movement. The student community is shocked by this drastic move, especially when the case regarding the fee hike is still pending with the Madras High Court. In 2018, the Pondicherry University made exorbitant hikes to tuition fee across the courses and the student community opposed this move. Several rounds of memorandum submissions, agitations, hunger strikes and other forms of protest were held by the students demanding the administration to recall the fee hike. Although a committee was formed by the administration to discuss the matter with the student council members, the administration was not ready to budge from their stand. On February 6, 2020, a call to occupy administration building was given by the council when hundreds of students gathered and get out the vice chancellor. The occupy movement went on for the next 33 days until the university approached the Madras High Court. Paruchay Yadav, president of the Pondicherry University students council, explains why the administration has taken the drastic step of punishing 11 students two years after the protest. We were told to recall the strike. So unfortunately, we had to recall the strike and right after five days of that, the pandemic started and the educational institutions throughout the country started closing down. So during this time also, we decided that we will be filing a petition against the university for this fee hike, which has happened. So we did that and the case is still pending in the Madras High Court. But why I am sharing this thing with you is that when the case is still pending in the Madras High Court, no verdict, no direction from the court as of yet, that who was wrong, who was right or nothing of that sort has happened. Despite that, the university sends one, this Choco's notice to 11 students who were part of the strike, this fee must fall protest. And this Choco's notice was given to the students after one and a half years of this protest, which itself tells that how the university has planned this move and how they have did it. So after one and a half years when we received the Choco's notice, we responded to it and there was no further response from the university. Then on the 17th December, the same 11 students who were given the Choco's notice, they were sent a notice, as well as a letter by post that they have been debarred from the university for the five years and a fine of 10,000 rupees has been imposed on them and they wouldn't be getting their degree certificates or any other ocean money etc. unless they pay this fine. So this is what has happened so far. The university's intention is clear, that they want to send a message among the students community who are studying right now and the camp, let me tell you that the campus hasn't opened yet. Only the science stream students have been called to the university as of now. Some 700, 800 students are in the campus, which is important to mention because this is the university of 5,500-6,000 students. So students are yet to come and the students who have taken part in the strike, the main motive behind that is that by the time the university would send them this Choco's notice, they would be passed out. So that's why I mentioned that they have done it in a very planned manner and through this message that the university has given the Choco's notice, they want to, their intent is to threaten the students who are studying in the campus right now. So these kind of tactics and these kind of authoritative circulars without any consideration or any sort of perspective of the students community, the university authorities are bringing that their only intent is to kill any sort of political activity or any sort of political consciousness that takes place in university spaces. That's the only intent. We gave a call to all the progressive political parties to extend their support against this regressive, this authoritative move, which they did and along with the progressive mainstream political parties inside the campus, the faculties haven't been vocal about it and haven't extended their support as of yet, as of now. So apart from this, the non-teaching employee union in Pondicherry University, they have extended their full support with the students, which they did during the Feast Must Fall protest as well. So till now, this is the support we have received and apart from that, other big institutions like JNU and CU TIS, they have extended their solidarity and Madhav University have extended their solidarity. So this is the way that we are looking at it and we are trying to build the similar solidarity which would resist this project implementation by the BJP government because we know that they are powerful and if we have to resist them, we also need to come together, the people with the same mindset to save the face of public education in our country. So this is our idea and this is how we are looking at it. The struggle against privatization and commercialization of education is an ongoing one and democratically elected student unions and the student movement has been a barrier for those in power to smoothly impose their neoliberal policies. Parucha Yadav says that is why institutions are imposing restrictions on students to ensure that they do not mobilize against the authorities and their policy. During the pandemic, we have seen that how it held in imposing these kind of restrictions or how it has held in a very rapid way for the BJP government to impose their project of commercialization and also restricting the movement in the campuses. So installing the CCTV cameras and the curfew timings we have seen in the past how the CCTV cameras were installed in JNU as well and now we are seeing it in Pondicherry University. So these universities are central universities which get enough immediate reaction but apart from these universities, there are several other universities which do not get the certain media traction which they must and these kind of restrictions and these kind of tactics have been practiced in universities like Central University Tamil Nadu, we talk about Central University Haryana. These are the still central universities. There are other state universities also where such kind of impositions have taken place in the past. So that is why how we look at this particular move by the administration and along with it the installation of CCTV cameras, the curfew timings and wearing certain kind of dressing and maybe in two, three years they might impose some sort of saffron uniform as well we might never know. So these kind of moves must be resisted. This is our first priority. One of the major factor also which distinguish between, suppose JNU, PU, these universities and other Central universities is the presence of a union. In these universities also, big public universities, the union is the only barrier right now which is stopping their neoliberal policies which they are trying to bring in the campus. While in absence of the union in other smaller Central universities, there is an absence of union and it's easier for the administration to bring in such sort of policies and this is why we believe that if we have to resist that we need to build a larger solidarity which represents the students community across the country.