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Vipin Vijayan, a research scholar in the Department of Sanskrit at the University of Kerala, has alleged caste-based discrimination and abuse of authority by department head C.N. Vijayakumari. The controversy arose after Prof. Vijayakumari, who also serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, objected to the award of PhD to the scholar. In a Facebook post, Mr. Vijayan accused the Professor of attempting to sabotage his PhD evaluation by falsely claiming that he does not know Sanskrit. The research scholar, who holds an MPhil in Sanskrit from the same department, wrote that he had completed his dissertation under the guidance of Prof. Vijayakumari herself. “If I truly did not know Sanskrit, how did the same guide approve my MPhil dissertation,” he asked in his post, in which he questioned the credibility and intentions of the Dean’s report to the Vice-Chancellor. The scholar alleged that the controversy was driven by caste prejudice and political bias within the department. “My politics is left-wing. The teacher follows RSS-BJP ideology and is an active member of the Sangh Parivar-affiliated teachers’ association at the university,” Mr. Vijayan wrote. Mr. Vijayan clarified that his PhD thesis was written in English, which is permissible under university regulations. He added that several MPhil and PhD theses in the Sanskrit department have been written in English, and that the rules allow open defence presentations to be conducted in English or Malayalam as well. Accusing the Dean of overstepping her authority and disregarding the recommendations of the Vice Chancellor–appointed examiners and open defence chairperson, who had already approved his thesis for the PhD, the scholar demanded that Prof. Vijayakumari be removed from her post. Mr. Vijayan compared his experience to that of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit scholar from the University of Hyderabad, who had committed suicide in 2016.
