Dalit student protests outside BHU claiming PhD admission denial

NEW DELHI: A Dalit student has been protesting outside the Vice Chancellor's residence at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) for the past 14 days after being allegedly denied PhD admission. Shivam Sonkar claimed that the BHU’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies had announced six PhD seats, with three reserved for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) candidates and three to be filled through an entrance test. He said he applied for admission via the entrance test and secured the second position.

However, there were no reserved seats for Scheduled Caste candidates in the entrance test category, and the three available seats were allotted to General and OBC candidates. "Additionally, the department failed to fill three seats under the JRF category," he claimed. Sonkar argued that the university had the discretion to allocate the unfilled seats to candidates from other categories "but refused" to do so in his case. He began his sit-in protest on March 21, the day after the results were announced.

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Entrance seats already filled

Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Sanjay Kumar assured him on April 3 that his admission request would be reconsidered, Sonkar said. However, the student stated that he will not end his protest until the university grants him admission. In response, the university administration issued a statement clarifying that Sonkar had applied for admission through the Research Entrance Test, which had only two available seats — one for a General category candidate and one for an OBC candidate — both of which were filled.

"Since he ranked second, he could not secure admission," the statement read. The administration further stated that Sonkar is demanding the conversion of three unfilled JRF seats into regular entrance test seats to facilitate his admission. "However, according to PhD regulations, such a conversion is not permitted, and his admission could not be granted due to his rank," it added.