IIT Kanpur: Was fairness subverted in special jobs drive for SCs?

 This copy was written before the IIT Kanpur Board of Governors decided in mid-September that it would not revoke the PhD degree of Dr Subrahmanyam Saderla. The press note released by IIT Kanpur said, inter alia: “The Board decided that PhD Degree of Dr S Saderla will not be revoked and a corrigendum will be appended to the thesis by Dr S Saderla identifying the text that is common knowledge and identical to earlier theses. An appropriate advisory will be issued to Dr Saderla and his thesis supervisor by the Director.”

An Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Dr Subrahmanyam Saderla, had alleged in early 2018 that he was harassed and discriminated based on his caste by four senior faculty in particular, board members of IIT Kanpur, the Faculty Forum of IIT Kanpur, and finally its senate.

He alleges that he was knowingly and wilfully harassed by faculty of his own department as well as other departments because of his caste. Several actions, taken or recommended, based on his allegations by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), IIT Kanpur and the police have currently been stayed by the Allahabad High Court.

"It is tragic that even in an institution of national eminence, like IIT Kanpur, a handful of influential administrators can bend the draconian SC/ST Act for their own narrow purposes at the cost of destroying the careers of eminent colleagues

The then officiating Director, Prof Manindra Agrawal, and the head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Prof A K Ghosh, strongly believe that the allegation of discrimination is valid. Their decisions played a strong role in the recruitment of Dr Saderla. It was their responsibility to ensure that due diligence was followed in the recruitment process. Both of them have repeatedly stated in various committees and newspaper reports that no procedural irregularity took place in the recruitment procedure.

However, faculty, students, staff and even the faculty spouses on the IIT Kanpur campus believe that the entire case is a witch-hunt to punish the whistle-blowers, who pointed out serious lapses in the recruitment process, silence the voices of dissent, and settle personal scores.

After two inquiries, two NCSC reports, and one FIR, and over 14 months of intense stress, these four faculty members continue to stand by what they are convinced is the truth. Now, the entire Faculty Forum is fearlessly calling for the resignation of Prof Agrawal and Prof Ghosh for abusing their positions and vitiating the atmosphere of the institute. The Faculty Forum resolved that their conduct should be investigated for violations of official conduct rules. These officials should be divested of their official responsibilities with immediate effect.

For last 14 months, over several spurts of media reportage, one has heard the story of the harassment of Dr Saderla and even his family in minute chronological detail. However, not once have the four alleged faculty members who have been accused of discriminating against Dr Saderla — Professors C S Upadhyay, Sanjay Mittal, Rajiv Shekhar and Ishan Sharma — spoken a word.

They don’t offer any press briefings defending and justifying their actions, and give no quotes to newspapers. No report carried even that catch-all line — that XYZ was unavailable for comment. But what does speak for them is the Indian judicial system. They have been given four stays in 14 months by the Allahabad High Court against the actions of NCSC, IIT Kanpur and now the police.

More recently, one hears that the court has summoned data from IIT Kanpur in response to one of their writs. The data provided in their writs, a few replies to RTI queries, and documents available on the IIT Kanpur website expose some graver issues that need public attention because they raise serious concerns about the transparency, accountability and fairness of recruitment processes in institutes of national importance. Especially when it involves a special recruitment drive for SC, ST, OBC, and PwD (divyang).

Affirmative Action Drive Through Nepotism: IIT Kanpur advertised minimum eligibility qualifications for their Special Recruitment Drive (advertisement number DF-4/2017) through which Dr Saderla applied in 2017, as:

"PhD, with first class or equivalent (in terms of grades) at the preceding degree in the appropriate branch, with a very good academic record throughout.

You can all read this on the website of IIT Kanpur here.

It is claimed in several fora, and by the officiating Director, Prof Agrawal, that Dr Saderla, whose PhD CPI (Cumulative Performance Index) score is 7.0, meets the advertised minimum eligibility criteria of the Special Recruitment Drive. But, on the other hand, his detractors say that 7.0 CPI is not equivalent to first class at IIT Kanpur and, therefore, the Department of Aerospace Engineering flouted minimum eligibility norms during the Special Recruitment Drive.

The selection, led by Prof Agrawal, allegedly provided selective relaxation to a candidate who happened also to be the Masters and PhD student of the head of the Department, Prof A K Ghosh. This amounts to discrimination if the relaxation is given to one candidate and not the rest who are also reserved category candidates. According to the ex-Liaison Officer of IIT Kanpur, relaxing the rules for some and not for other SC/ST candidates “tantamounts to a mockery of the great affirmative aims of a special recruitment drive.”

It is surprising that for over 14 months, an institute of higher learning, having highly educated and decorated faculty and administrators, has not been able to examine its own documents and practices to figure out whether or not 7.0 CPI is equivalent to a first class. Even the two external committees led by Prof Pathak and Justice Siddiqui have nothing to comment on this matter. The silence of the board of governors is even more deafening. IIT Kanpur would not be torn apart today if someone had simply followed the norms laid down transparently in the grading scheme. Is this rocket science? 

The PG manual (institute-approved Post-Graduate manual prescribing academic norms (which can be accessed here) at IIT Kanpur says the following: minimum CPI requirement for continuing in the PhD programme is 7.0. That is, the minimum graduating CPI is 7.0. If Dr Saderla had a CPI of 6.99 he would not have been awarded a PhD degree by IIT Kanpur. The CPI of Dr Saderla is exactly 7.0, which means he barely managed the minimum norms.

Moreover, not only did Dr Saderla not have a first class in his PhD, he was on academic probation in the first semester of his M Tech. He had a CPI of 6.0 — for which, as per the PG manual rules (see here), , he should have been issued a warning letter from the then head of the department. According to the testimony of one of his M Tech professors, Dr Saderla got a ‘D’ grade in his departmental course and his performance was not very good.

However, for the sake of an argument, even if it is assumed that the appointee was given a relaxation (which was not advertised), UGC guidelines permit only a 5 per cent relaxation from the minimal requirement. In this case, even if we assume the minimal requirement to be Grade B (CPI 8), described as ‘Good’ in the IIT Kanpur academic system, then 5 per cent of 8 is 7.6 CPI. Thus, Dr Saderla, even after relaxation does not meet the minimal requirement, as his CPI is 7.0 in PhD.

Does IIT Kanpur, an institute indebted to the Indian taxpayer, not owe a clarification to all aspiring and desiring SC/ST candidates on what its minimum qualification requirements are?

Why doesn’t IIT Kanpur along with all other IITs simply announce that 7.0 CPI is first class?

Why does IIT Kanpur not fill all its faculty posts with candidates having a CPI of 7.0 in their PhD? Why is there just one amongst 400 faculty who has a CPI of 7.0?

It is interesting to observe the record of the academic qualifications of General and Reserved category candidates selected in the Department of Aerospace Engineering since 2016. Here, it is important to emphasise that the advertised minimum eligibility requirements for General candidates is not different from those of the Reserved category candidates; at IIT Kanpur, they are one and the same. Check it out for yourself on the website

Information revealed through RTIs clearly show (see table below) that no candidate — General or Reserved category — below a CPI of 8.5 has been shortlisted for final interviews by IIT Kanpur in the Department of Aerospace Engineering since 2016. The only exception was Dr Saderla. The aberration is inexplicable unless the advertised minimum eligibility norms were indeed selectively relaxed for one student (Dr Saderla) of the Head of the Department, Prof A K Ghosh. But, relaxation itself was not advertised. In fact, the information obtained through RTIs makes it amply clear that IIT Kanpur did not state any relaxation policy in its advertisement.

Such aberrations were noticed by several faculty within the Department of Aerospace Engineering after Dr Saderla joined the institute. Eleven faculty members of the Department expressed it in writing to the then officiating Director, Prof Manindra Agrawal. They said:

"We the undersigned faculty members of Aerospace Engineering would like to communicate to you our extreme displeasure at the way the department faculty advisory committee and head ignored the faculty inputs and concerns and went ahead with their recommendations for the recent selections held in December 2017, to the posts of Assistant Professor in AE to the institute committee.

How is anyone’s caste, creed, religion, gender or any other divisive trait inferred from this communication? It simply reflects an apprehension that could easily have been addressed by Prof Agrawal or Prof Ghosh. Unfortunately, they didn’t do so. Their failure to address these lapses and take corrective measures has today cost IIT Kanpur its academic image.

Instead of addressing the concerns raised by the department faculty, the officiating Director turned the entire case into a caste issue. Prof Kamal Poddar is one of the 11 signatories of the letter mentioned above. He is a very senior and well respected faculty of the Department of Aerospace Engineering. Few know that he himself belongs to a reserved category because IITs pride themselves in being concerned with merit alone, and nothing else. Belonging to the same department as Dr Saderla, he has first-hand knowledge of this issue.

He was also the institute’s Liaison Officer for the SC/ST cell when Dr Saderla was recruited, in which capacity he corresponded with the National Commission of Scheduled Castes on this matter. He informed NCSC, in writing, that he did not find any caste issue in this episode. All interactions of Dr Saderla with the faculty have been cordial. In fact, the department faculty have hugged and welcomed Prof Saderla.

To quote from Prof Kamal Poddar’s letter to NCSC:

"Here is what I think has happened. Several faculty members flagged the possibility of violation of advertised minimum eligibility norms and the possibility of conflict of interest as the head (Prof AK Ghosh), who is also Prof Saderla’s adviser, being involved in all committees of the selection process. These issues were flagged privately to the Director (through Head), by email to only board members, and over a restricted senators-only list. This was, I repeat, (the) only concern raised about the possibility of violation of advertised minimum eligibility norms and conflict of interest. Because, relaxing the rules for some and not for other SC/ST candidates would tantamount to a mockery of the great affirmative aims of a special recruitment drive. Nothing in these private notes/mails was specific to a person, leave alone person’s caste.

Instead of listening to the testimony and evidence of its own officer (the office of the Liaison Officer is expected to assist the NCSC in the investigation of complaints as mandated by DoPT), NCSC recommended in its minutes dated 10 April 2018 to remove him from his post. Of course, such overreach and unfair judgement without supporting evidence could not escape the eyes of the High Court, which immediately stayed the order.

But it still makes you wonder: who is harassing whom? And is this a caste issue at all, considering that the NCSC prefers the version of one SC person (Dr Saderla) over another (Prof Poddar, LO, IIT Kanpur); the former backed by upper caste officials (the officiating Director and Head of Department) to protect his recruitment with the latter questioning it to protect his department and his institute from nepotism, and the wider SC, ST, OBC and PwD candidates from discrimination in the form of unequal opportunities. Clearly, this is not a caste issue but one of transparency and equity, as Dr Poddar said, but for which he was rapped by the NCSC itself.

If Relaxation Was Not Advertised, Was It Implemented?: If IIT Kanpur had clearly advertised in its recruitment policy that applicants with 7.0 CPI were eligible to apply, more SC/ST candidates would have applied in response to the special recruitment drive. All SC/ST candidates who had similar or better qualifications than Dr Saderla, but did not apply for the post because they did not possess a First Class in their PhD or M Tech, have been deprived of an opportunity to apply, compete and be hired at IIT Kanpur. Put simply, IIT Kanpur has discriminated against all eligible SC/ST candidates, by undisclosed selection norms and procedures that benefited the student of the Head of the Department of Aerospace Engineering.

This preferential and privileged treatment to Dr Saderla seems even more discriminating when you look at the CPI scores of the other SC/ST candidates who applied during the Special Recruitment Drive. In response to an RTI (see Table 2), IIT Kanpur admitted that there were four SC/ST candidates who applied in the Special Recruitment Drive for positions in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. Even though Dr Saderla only had a CPI of 7.0, IIT Kanpur selected him over two other candidates who had CPIs of 8.2 and 8.25 in their PhDs.

The other SC/ST candidates were not even shortlisted, let alone interviewed and selected for the post despite their better CPIs compared to Dr Saderla. One often hears of discrimination between General and Reserved category candidates, but this is a novel case where some members of the higher castes favoured blatant misuse of reservation by elite castes to discriminate in favour of one candidate. It has pitched a Dalit against other Dalits.

Table 2: Marks of all candidates who applied for the Special Recruitment Drive of IIT Kanpur

This dubious practice has also been recorded in the Supreme Court judgement in the District Collector, Vizianagaram,Vs. M. Tripura Sundari Devi (1990(4) SLR 237. The Supreme Court states in its judgement:

"It must further be realised by all concerned that when an advertisement mentions a particular qualification and an appointment is made in disregard of the same, it is not a matter only between the appointing authority and the appointee concerned. The aggrieved are all those who had similar or better qualifications than the appointee or appointees but who had not applied for the post because they did not possess the qualifications mentioned in the advertisement. It amounts to a fraud on the public to appoint a person with inferior qualifications in such circumstances unless it is clearly stated that the qualifications are relaxable. No court should be a party to the perpetuation of the fraudulent practice."

Both Prof Agrawal, Chair of the Selection Committee, and Prof AK Ghosh, member of the selection committee which recruited Dr Saderla, have confirmed that requirements of academic qualifications were indeed relaxed for Dr Saderla.

Statement Of Head, Aerospace Engineering: 

“Dr. Saderla has M.Tech CPI=7.25 (well above graduating CPI), PhD CPI=7.0 and thesis of good quality (paper from PhD=6). Yes, for general candidate, we would not have short-listed the candidate. This point was clearly mentioned in DFAC-IFAC meeting. This being special drive and for SC category DFAC-IFAC agreed to take it for interview.” (Emphasis added)

Statement Of Officiating Director, IIT Kanpur On The Head’s Statement:

“… the department would not short-list a candidate with this record in case of general category candidates. However, given that this was recruitment in special category, some relaxation was done during short-listing. In other words, he [Head, AE] is saying that the candidate does meet minimum qualifications, however, for general category candidates, short-listing is done with more stringent norms which were not applied in this case.” (Emphasis added)

But we all know that the relaxation was not advertised, and therefore it could not have been selectively offered to the student of Prof A K Ghosh. This, as the Supreme Court judgement emphasised, is a fraudulent practice for which both Prof Agrawal and Prof Ghosh are liable to face a disciplinary inquiry. Of course, such an enquiry, if held impartially, will also nullify the Special Recruitment Drive, further implying that Dr Saderla will have to re-apply whenever a fresh advertisement is floated by IIT Kanpur.

With this as a background, does it surprise us anymore that all three — Prof Agrawal, Prof Ghosh and Dr Saderla — are moving heaven and earth for last 14 months to divert the attention of the entire nation, and now even the world, by spreading the news that four faculty in particular, and the faculty of IIT Kanpur, in general, are casteist?

Professors Ghosh and Agarwal have played divisive politics twice. Firstly, they misrepresented the minimum eligibility qualifications to all reserved category candidates by advertising that First Class and a very good academic record was an eligibility requirement to be a faculty at IIT Kanpur. Due to this, several Dalit candidates who had CPI scores below First Class or an academic record which was not ‘very good’ could not apply for the post of Assistant Professor. They lost an opportunity of employment.

"The saddest part is that they have also harmed the careers of better qualified SC/ST candidates

Secondly, between the candidates who applied, Prof Ghosh selected Dr Saderla, his own student, despite the fact that the other SC/ST candidates had higher CPIs than Dr Saderla. This divisive politics will damage the movement for empowering Dalits by pitching one Dalit against another, even while destroying the academic ethos of a great institution. And, of course, it will destroy IIT Kanpur, as we are in the process of witnessing.
Right to equality of opportunity in matters of public employment (Article 16) is the fundamental right of all Indians. All eligible reserved category candidates have the right to avail themselves of equal opportunities to apply to IIT Kanpur. For this the entry level qualifications have to be the same as the ones that are advertised. No other department in IIT Kanpur even short-listed, let alone recruited, an applicant with a CPI of 7 in the Special Recruitment Drive.

Either all departments, other than Aerospace Engineering, did not follow the advertised recruitment guidelines and are therefore guilty of discriminating against SC/STs, of Prof Ghosh flouted the advertised guidelines to facilitate the entry of his own student with the support of the officiating Director. They owe an apology to the Dalit community and the nation for subverting a process intended to deliver affirmative action to the marginalised sections of society and for besmirching the image of IIT Kanpur.

Sadly, the well-intentioned SC/ST Atrocities Act lends itself to easy abuse in many cases even while genuine victims of caste oppression don’t often get justice, thanks to poor implementation of laws meant for their empowerment. It is tragic that even in an institution of national eminence, like IIT Kanpur, a handful of influential administrators can bend the draconian SC/ST Act for their own narrow purposes at the cost of destroying the careers of eminent colleagues. The saddest part is that they have also harmed the careers of better qualified SC/ST candidates.

Was IIT Kanpur’s Special Drive For Dalit Faculty Vitiated By Favoritism?

This article is in response to the Bollywood-style, pathos-filled saga that Prof Manindra Agrawal, Officiating Director of IIT Kanpur, has written by weaving a tale of alleged harassment of Dr. Subrahmanyam Saderla at the hands of certain 'upper caste’ professors.

It seems likely he did this to divert attention from my expose in which a mala fide case of caste discrimination was cooked up by a group of senior faculty at IIT Kanpur, with Prof Agrawal and Dr. Saderla’s Ph.D. guide and current Head of Department, Prof A K Ghosh, playing a lead role, in order to cover up an unfair appointment that subverted a Special Recruitment Drive of IIT Kanpur to facilitate the inclusion of SCs/STs in the faculty.

Prof Agrawal’s article scrupulously avoids touching on the following serious issues I had raised in my article:

The Ethics Cell, the Senate Post-Graduate Committee (SPGC), the IITK Senate, and even the response of Dr. Saderla have confirmed that the latter’s Ph.D. thesis was partly plagiarised. Depending on the technical software used by the committee set up by the Board of Governors (BoG), plagiarism can range from at least 11 percent to 25 percent. As per the University Grants Commission (UGC) norms, this automatically translates into the Ph.D. degree being put in abeyance for six months. One hopes and expects that IIT standards are higher.

It is also notable that the IITs have not accepted UGC policies so far, defending the academic autonomy of their senates. One wonders why the BoG is here looking towards UGC norms since under the IIT Act, the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) has no locus standi to advise the IITs on their specific academic decisions; nor did the MHRD do so in the previous case of plagiarism by Abhishek Singh, mentioned in my earlier article in Swarajya on plagiarism (7 April 2019).

When an anonymous student found out and reported the plagiarism, Dr. Saderla, instead of awaiting the decision of the institute’s probe in this matter, hurriedly filed an FIR against four faculty members, citing harassment under the non-bailable SC/ST Act.

Several SC/ST candidates were likely discriminated against through this appointment by a senior (upper caste) faculty member, Prof A K Ghosh, to benefit one particular SC candidate — his own student, Dr. Saderla. In this, he got the full support of administrators like Prof Manindra Agrawal (also upper caste). It takes real genius to convert a case of alleged nepotism by two upper caste faculty members into a case of 'caste discrimination' when the only ones who have reason to feel aggrieved are other SC/ST students, who were sidelined to give way to a favored student against the rules.

Dr. Saderla’s minimal grades did not qualify him for recruitment as IIT faculty; his performance in the job seminar was found unsatisfactory; and when the propriety of the alleged nepotistic appointment was challenged, the same professor and his close buddies tried to mask it by creating a false narrative of discrimination and harassment of a hapless SC faculty.

While this attempt to use emotional cries of discrimination in a case involving favouritism is deplorable, the reality is Professors Agrawal and Ghosh are actually indirectly hounding four senior IIT professors and destroying their careers by getting them arrested under the draconian SC/ST Act. Under this law, harassing a person from the SC/ST community is a non-bailable offense. A mere allegation is enough to get a person sent to jail even before a trial has begun and evidence adduced.

Do these four senior professors with a stellar track record in their respective disciplines not deserve the slightest bit of empathy and trust? Their only crime has been to point out that by favoring his own SC student, Prof Ghosh did a great injustice to other SC/ST candidates who had higher grades than Dr. Saderla and whose Ph.D. and M Tech theses were not marred by charges of plagiarism. Should Professors Ghosh and Agarwal be using the shoulders of their handpicked SC student to fire their guns at their colleagues just to divert attention away from their own failures?

Since Prof Agrawal avoids dealing with the charges against him and Dr. Ghosh, I have no choice but to present some more facts in order to rescue the whole case from degenerating into a Bollywood-style soppy saga of misplaced victimhood.

Facts Related To The Appointment Of Dr. Saderla: In this part – and there are more to follow – I will focus only on facts related to the recruitment of Dr. Saderla. But first a clarification regarding the status of charges leveled by Dr. Saderla against faculty members: Contrary to the factually incorrect version presented by Prof Agrawal, the board found no, repeat no, charges of harassment, caste-based or otherwise, against the four faculty. Currently, the disciplinary proceedings against three of the four faculty members accused of “discrimination” is complete, in which one faculty was exonerated by the Board of Governors. This is the first of the innumerable factual misrepresentations in Prof Agrawal’s retelling of the episode, where he claims that one faculty was “warned”, and not exonerated.

The increments of two faculty members were withdrawn. They have both challenged this in court. The file of the fourth faculty is under consideration with the Visitor, IIT Kanpur (President of India).

The above mentioned 'punishment' was given for violation of IIT conduct rules, not charges of caste discrimination. And what was the nature and extent of the 'violation’? One faculty member had called an informal meeting without the permission of the head and the others attended it. These two faculty members are already in court to challenge this punitive action. And the court has found enough evidence of possible wrongdoing to direct IIT Kanpur to submit documents justifying their decision. Hence, let us wait for the law to take its course in this matter.

Meanwhile, IIT Kanpur has ensured that Dr. Saderla is made a permanent faculty at IIT Kanpur in January 2019. He has also been given lab space to carry out his research. In fact, the Aeromodelling lab was gifted to him by one of the alleged harassers! Thus, the institute has completed its responsibility of holding an inquiry against the four faculty in response to Dr. Saderla’s original complaint, and of establishing and securing the career of Dr. Saderla at IIT Kanpur.

What remains is the matter of plagiarism by an ex-PhD student of IIT Kanpur with roll number 10101064 which, objectively, has nothing to do with this student’s current role as Dr. Saderla, a faculty at IIT Kanpur. A student can be employed at one of the best places, let’s say MIT, but that cannot detract from his/her past misdeeds. The current position/status of a student has no bearing on the consequences of his/her past actions. An excellent example of this is the resignation of the German Minister of Defense, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, in 2011 after his doctoral thesis submitted in 2007 was found to have been plagiarised.

This is an important distinction that explains Dr. Saderla’s job being made permanent in January 2019 in spite of an ongoing inquiry into plagiarism by roll number 10101064 (Dr. Saderla) in his Ph.D. and M Tech theses.

Now, that the dust has settled on the complaint of at least one complainant, that is Dr. Saderla, let us look into the status of other concerns/complaints registered in this issue. IIT Kanpur continues to refuse to look at:

• The note on procedural lapses in the special recruitment drive of 2017 submitted by 11 faculty members of the Department of Aerospace Engineering in January 2018; and
• Concerns raised in early 2018 by a board member and a senator on the possible violation of the minimum eligibility norms during the special recruitment drive.

After this clarification, we return to the Special Recruitment Drive of 2017. In an earlier article, I have already detailed, with evidence, how favoritism perverted the aims of the special recruitment drive of 2017 and ended up discriminating against other SC/ST candidates. However, Prof Agrawal’s recent attempt at presenting “his version of the case” demands, in fairness, further scrutiny of the issue.

Recruitment Facts: The recruitment process outlined on the website of IIT Kanpur is as follows:

Step 1: A group of faculty members of the concerned area of specialization gives its recommendation on the suitability of candidates for a faculty position.

Step 2: The candidates recommended by the faculty group are called for a seminar. Faculty, staff, and students from all departments are invited to the seminar. In this case, some of the 11 faculty members who signed the letter of displeasure to the director in January 2018 were a part of the audience evaluating the seminar. The seminar was scheduled on 5 October 2017. Remember the date, because Prof Agrawal doesn’t, as we will see below.

Step 3: Recommendation letters are sought from the referees of these candidates who are identified after the seminar.

Step 4: The Department Faculty Advisory Committee (DFAC) shortlists the candidates on the basis of the application, faculty input, seminar, and referee comments.

This committee includes the Head of the Department, in this case, Prof A K Ghosh, the Ph.D. and M Tech supervisor of Dr. Saderla. “Faculty input” and “seminar” refer to the feedback given by faculty members of the Department of Aerospace Engineering regarding the credentials of Dr. Saderla and his seminar performance. Faculty input about Dr. Saderla’s seminar was given but was not considered, as we will see below. Remember this again, because, Prof Agrawal conveniently misremembers (see below).

Step 5: The shortlisted candidates are presented to the Institute Faculty Advisory Committee (IFAC) and are called for an interview.

The IFAC includes the Head of the Department and the Director, in this case, respectively, Prof A K Ghosh, and Prof Agrawal. As the Director, Prof Manindra Agrawal was the chair of the DFAC-IFAC committee. Please remember this as well, because, yet again, Prof Agrawal has willed himself to forget this, as we see below.

Step 6: An external selection committee then takes a call. This selection committee is chaired by the Director, in this case, Prof Manindra Agrawal, in his capacity as Officiating Director. The Head of the Department is present during the selection. This selection committee took place in the last week of December 2018.

Prof Agrawal, the Fact-Finding and Inquiry reports confirm that these steps were followed, but none of them verify whether the shortlisted candidates met the advertised minimum eligibility criteria. This immediately prompts the following questions:

In the entire selection process, why did Prof Agrawal as the custodian of the entire selection process, and Prof Ghosh, as the Head of the Department, not bother to check whether the advertised minimum eligibility criteria were applied uniformly on all SC/ST candidates who applied?

Why did both of them not bother to check whether all SC/ST candidates were given equal opportunities to apply, compete, and be hired at IIT Kanpur? Why was just one, Dr. Saderla, the Ph.D. student of the Head of Department given an opportunity by relaxing the advertised minimum eligibility norms? What about the rest of the SC/ST candidates? Do they not have rights?

Prof Agrawal, in his version of this case, comments upon the alleged harassment of his selected candidate after the candidate joined, whereas the flouting of norms that are being pointed out by faculty members occurred before the candidate joined, during his recruitment. My article discusses these crucial aspects that Prof Agrawal, in his version, does not touch at all.

Here are some crucial facts.

Fact 1: The questions raised by the 11 faculty members from the Department of Aerospace Engineering as well as a Senator, Liaison Officer, and the Board member were about the procedural lapses in the pre-hiring process and not the post-hiring events alleged in the complaint letter of Dr. Saderla. Some of the concerns raised were about the advertised minimal qualifications in the Special Recruitment Drive, which have no bearing on the research capabilities — “innate” or “acquired” — of a candidate.

The advertised minimal qualifications raise a question about the denial of equal opportunities to all SC/ST candidates to apply and compete for the faculty position.

Fact 2: The job seminar of Dr. Saderla took place on 5 October 2017. But, in Prof Agrawal’s retelling, the DFAC-IFAC meeting discussed Dr. Saderla’s case a month before, which is in September 2017. The only way this would have been possible is if the DFAC members had a premonition in September 2017 of what will happen in Dr. Saderla’s job seminar in October 2017. This allowed them to predict or foresee the “unfortunate proceedings” of the job seminar that was held on 5 October 2017 and, better still, discuss and evaluate Dr. Saderla’s performance in advance.

If true, then this premonition of the DFAC committee is another miracle, like the one which roped in Prof Robert Langdon from his fictional universe in Dan Brown’s novels to sign a petition on the alleged harassment of Dr. Saderla (see post-script).

Unfortunately, the truth is much more mundane: “Dr. Saderla’s candidature was discussed in the IFAC and DFAC which was chaired by the officiating Director Dr. Agarwal.” (Statement under oath to Hon’ble Justice (Retd) Siddiqui by Prof Abhijeet Kushari, Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering, DFAC member, and institute witness in the departmental inquiry against four faculty.)

Has the former Officiating Director, the current Deputy Director, and a staunch supporter of Dr. Saderla misled the public about the sequence of events in a signed public article?

Fact 3: If a faculty member recuses himself or herself from a meeting, it is minuted. No records of DFAC meetings, DFAC-IFAC meetings, or of the selection process till date have been produced by Prof Manindra Agrawal which states that Prof A K Ghosh recused himself from these proceedings, given his direct interest in Dr. Saderla. This should have been done to avoid the obvious conflict of interest. In fact, DFAC member Prof Abhijeet Kushari, who was an eye-witness, confirms that Prof Ghosh did not recuse himself from the DFAC-IFAC meeting. Similarly, he was present in all department-level deliberations, as confirmed by another DFAC member to the Fact-Finding Committee (FFC): “He (Prof AK Ghosh) was there.” (recorded in Annexure 3 of the FFC Report)

Fact 4: Prof Agrawal, in January 2017, admitted in an email to the members of the Board of Governors that the selection committee did not find the candidate (Dr. Saderla) to be strong:

“In the selection committee, all the three external experts had the unanimous opinion that, while the candidate is not very strong, he has the potential and motivation to do well. That formed the basis for their recommendation.” (Emphasis authors)

I also repeat other statements made by Prof Agrawal and Prof Ghosh from my previous article on this issue, because Prof Agrawal has not responded to these facts.

Statement of Head, Aerospace Engineering:

“Dr Saderla has M Tech CPI=7.25 (well above graduating CPI), PhD CPI=7.0 and thesis of good quality (paper from PhD=6). Yes, for general candidate, we would not have shortlisted the candidate. This point was clearly mentioned in DFAC-IFAC meeting. This being special drive and for SC category, DFAC-IFAC agreed to take it for interview.” (Emphasis author’s)

Statement of Officiating Director, IIT Kanpur on the Head’s statement:

“… the department would not shortlist a candidate with this record in the case of general category candidates. However, given that this was recruitment in special category, some relaxation was done during shortlisting. In other words, he [Head, AE] is saying that the candidate does meet minimum qualifications. However, for general category candidates, shortlisting is done with more stringent norms which were not applied in this case.” (Emphasis author’s)

However, nearly 14 months after writing these statements to the Board of Governors, Prof Agrawal is now claiming that the selection committee was “impressed” by Dr. Saderla. He is contradicting his own statements, which implies that he either misled the Board of Governors, or he is misleading the public or both. His contradictory testimonies are not doing him, or other academics any good.

Fact 5: The job seminar of Dr. Saderla took place on 5 October 2017. Three months after the seminar, Dr Saderla filed a complaint of harassment against the faculty who attended the seminar, which included one Prof Ishan Sharma. Both Dr. Saderla as well as Prof Agrawal believe that the presentation went reasonably well. Prof Ghosh too makes this claim. So, the people who are testifying that the job seminar went reasonably well are the candidate himself, his Ph.D. guide, and the chair of the selection committee now defending the hire.

In this regard, please note that a job seminar is not a self-appraisal form. Every job candidate may feel that s/he has performed well in the exam or in the interview. But it is not the judgment of the student/candidate that is used to evaluate performance, but that of the committee. In this case, it was the judgment of the faculty who were sitting in the audience.

Both Prof Agrawal and Prof Ghosh did not attend the seminar. How then do they know how the seminar went?

Eye-witnesses and experts present in the seminar have stated that the seminar performance of Dr. Saderla was not exceptional. Consider the following:

“Unfortunately, most of the questions he was not able to answer satisfactorily. There is one question from one of the DFAC members; it was not a satisfactory answer.”

“I was present in the seminar and I talked to some people. The presentation was OK but the question-answer was poor because he was not able to answer most of the questions. That was the feedback.”

(Statements recorded by the Fact-Finding Committee in its annexures of Prof Abhijeet Kushari, Professor, Aerospace Engineering, DFAC member.)

A subject expert from the Department of Aerospace Engineering stated, under oath, in the Departmental Inquiry that Dr Saderla was asked around 10 questions, but he was unable to answer many of them correctly. He also stated that he had given feedback about this.

Instead of addressing these concerns, Professors Ghosh and Agarwal converted academic questioning into an allegation of caste-based slander, using the opaque veil of the SC/ST Act.

Fact 6: Let us believe, for the sake of argument, that Prof Agrawal was looking for “innate ability” and not an “acquired” one in the Special Recruitment Drive. Therefore, even though “acquired abilities” in Dr. Saderla, as defined by Prof Agrawal in terms of performance in courses, grade points, college of graduation, publications, etc, were found “lacking”, his “innate ability” made up for it. If indeed the selections were based on “innate” and/or “acquired ability”, then Prof Agrawal forgot to mention this criterion in the advertisement for the benefit and information of all other SC/ST candidates. After all, if other SC/ST candidates, who lacked “acquired” abilities (not having First Class, etc), had known that IIT Kanpur could also evaluate “innate” abilities in its selection process for the post of Assistant Professor, they would have certainly applied. This immediately prompts the following questions:

• Why did IIT Kanpur not advertise that its minimal eligibility criteria also include “innate abilities” and not just “acquired abilities” for the benefit of all SC/ST candidates?
• In the absence of any other SC/ST candidate who had applied on the basis of “innate abilities”, is it at all surprising that the student of the Head of the Department alone was found suitable?

Fact 7: The internationally accepted way to evaluate “innate ability” is to consider the research output and research seminar performance of the candidate. As mentioned above, Dr. Saderla’s seminar performance was not exceptional. Even the selection committee members found the candidate “not very strong”. But, faculty feedback about the seminar was not considered, and the seminar performance was never discussed during the selection of Dr. Saderla:

Statements To Fact-Finding Committee Of Prof Abhijeet Kushari, Professor, Aerospace Engineering, DFAC Member:

“The seminar performance was not considered for shortlisting the candidates.”

“The Seminar was not discussed in the meeting [DFAC-IFAC, chaired by Prof Manindra Agrawal]”

A statement under oath to Hon’ble Justice Siddiqui by Prof. Abhijeet Kushari, Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering, DFAC member, and Institute witness in the departmental inquiry against four faculty.

The last statement is especially damning. Even if we accept that Prof Manindra Agrawal was hiring on the basis of “innate ability”, then why did he not bother to discuss “innate ability” in terms of Dr. Saderla’s seminar performance in the DFAC-IFAC meeting which he chaired? This meeting was the only place where people like Prof Abhijeet Kushari, who attended the seminar, could have provided him feedback!

It is sad to see the Deputy Director of one of India’s premier institutes of higher learning calling his own senators “a lynching mob, baying for blood”, when all that the senators are standing up against is plagiarism and for academic integrity and honesty. Are we sure, at all, that Prof Agrawal will also be questioned by Prof Abhay Karandikar, the present Director of IIT Kanpur, for violation of conduct rules with as much alacrity as he has shown in previous cases?

According to Prof Agrawal, there are two narratives of this issue that are being published and debated. One is of “Saderla being not worthy of being hired at IITK and his recruitment being only because of his caste and/or manipulation by AKG”; and two, this is a “political fight between two groups in the institute and Saderla being used as a pawn.”

Let me leave you with a third narrative.

Professors Agarwal and Ghosh subverted the Special Recruitment Drive (SRD) to push the case of Dr. Saderla and are now shielding themselves from an inquiry by threatening everyone who raises a voice with an SC/ST case. One is appalled by how other deserving SC/ST candidates have been discriminated against by their actions.

I think it best to leave you with the unequivocal appraisal of the Special Recruitment Drive of the Institute’s SC/ST Liaison officer, Prof Kamal Poddar, Department of Aerospace Engineering, in his letter to the NCSC (National Commission for Scheduled Castes):

Here is what I think has happened: Several faculty members flagged the possibility of violation of advertised minimum eligibility norms and the possibility of a conflict of interest as the Head (Prof A K Ghosh), who is also Prof Saderla’s adviser, being involved in all committees of the selection process. These issues were flagged privately to the Director (through Head), by email to only Board members, and over a restricted Senators-only list. This was, I repeat, (the) only concern raised about the possibility of violation of advertised minimum eligibility norms and conflict of interest. Because relaxing the rules for some and not for other SC/ST candidates would tantamount to a mockery of the great affirmative aims of a special recruitment drive. Nothing in these private notes/mails was specific to a person, leave alone (the) person’s caste.

Post-script: A statement in support of Dr. Saderla, purportedly signed by 400 people internationally, is doing the rounds. The original statement has 400 signatures, with #276 being the fictional hero, Robert Langdon, from The Da Vinci Code. This raises doubts about the sincerity of the whole international solidarity campaign.

This is also the statement being carried (verbatim) by websites such as CounterCurrents.org, Sabrang India, and TheWire.in till I exposed the fraud. TheWire.in has added 67 more signatures while that of Langdon has gone missing, though the other websites continue to show Langdon as one of them.

There are several resolutions to the mystery of the missing Dr. Langdon is the latest version of the petition on TheWire.in.

1. Realising that he is supporting a fraudulent campaign, and being a seeker of truth, Robert Langdon, once again broke through the fourth wall and took back his support. Indeed Amar Ujala reports that Langdon and 67 other professors are now protesting against this English media campaign and want their names withdrawn from the list of supporters.

2. TheWire.in is running a parallel surreal campaign in which the campaign manifesto is plagiarised in toto from other campaigns, names are duplicated from other campaigns, names appearing magically, and leading fictional characters having walk-in parts.

3. The campaign leaders, who are friends with the TheWire.in writer, realizing that they have been caught out, decide to make amends in their own special "international solidarity" way by signing out Dr. Langdon and signing in several replacements.

I am choosing option 3.

Twitter’s Dhimmitude: How Islamists use platform to target me

 This article was published in the online edition of Swarajya on 24 September 2021.

https://swarajyamag.com/blogs/twitters-dhimmitude-how-islamists-use-platform-to-target-madhu-kishwar

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After suffering abuse and threats of harm on Twitter for many years, I decided to lodge a formal complaint with Twitter after I realised that there is a well-organised Islamist group which has put me on their hit list: they openly declare that they engineer mass reporting against my Twitter handle in order to get me banned from the platform.

What is worse, some of them are openly urging their team members to beat me up (lynch?) publicly.

Below, I share the full text of a complaint I sent on 31 August 2018 to Vinay Prakash, resident grievance officer of Twitter India. I have not yet received any response. In case, Twitter India does not take any action against the offending persons, I intend to explore other means of redressal because they have exceeded all limits in tarnishing my reputation and could well be planning to harm me physically. If we continue to suffer in silence, we are likely to suffer the fate of Kamlesh Tiwari.

Text of Letter to Vinay Prakash:

Dear Mr Prakash,

SUBJECT: Reporting imminent threat to life, conspiracy, criminal intimidation, defamation, outraging modesty, cyber bullying, harassment, abetment to assault, abusive and vulgar comments, stalking, organised targeting, cyber terrorism, hurting religious sentiments, wanton vilification, attack on religion, rioting and insult on social media platform, Twitter. Requesting prompt action against anti-social elements harassing and threatening me on Twitter.

I am an internationally acclaimed academic, editor and writer. My brief introduction is as follows:

Starting March 2021, I joined Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (a social science research centre at Teen Murti House) as a senior professor;

From 2017 to 2020, I was National Professor, Indian Council of Social Science Research;

Till 2016, I was a senior professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

In addition, I am the founder and managing trustee of human rights/women’s rights organisation, Manushi and founder editor of Manushi — A Journal About Women & Society. Our office moved from Civil Lines to Sarita Vihar in 2018.

As a policy, Manushi stays away from political party affiliations. From its inception in 1978, Manushi Trust & Journal remained fiercely independent by choosing to be self-supporting. We said a firm ‘No’ to government grants, ‘No’ to money from foreign donor agencies. This spirit of independence earned us respect from all quarters.

Sir, I have been in public life for the last 50 years commencing from my college days. I have an unblemished and a spotless track record. My research, writings and my selfless work for society, especially its vulnerable sections, have earned me widespread respect — cutting across political and ideological divides. Even those who may oppose my views, have not been able to point to a single instance of wrong doing by me in the last five decades. Very few people in public life can claim such a record.

However, ever since I published a series of articles in 2013 culminating in a well-researched book, Modi, Muslims & Media in 2014, exposing the fake narrative around the Gujarat riots of 2002, I have been targeted, brutally trolled, threatened, abused and defamed on social media, which has begun to impact not only my health but also endangers my safety and security.

I ignored it for long years but now the situation has assumed menacing proportions capable of culminating in lethal consequences. Therefore, I feel compelled to lodge this formal complaint and demand stern action against the perpetrators of these criminal offences. The starting point has to be the registration of first information report (FIR) under relevant provisions of law.

I, being a public figure, am active on social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. I regularly share my reasoned and articulate opinions on current affairs as well as historical events on social media. Mine is a strong and well-reasoned voice against #BreakUpIndiaForces and the #TukdeTukdeGang. Even though I have no connection with the BJP, all those who have a pathological aversion to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, pour out their venom against me with ferocity in order to erase my presence from all social media platforms. I have more than two million followers on Twitter and my views are taken seriously by people at large. Prime Minister Modi as well as senior leaders of different parties follow my handle. Because of this, the #BreakUpIndiaGang wishes to extinguish my presence on social media.

All these persons seem to be working at the behest of external and internal enemies of India. Therefore, they have been running systematic campaigns to defame and harm me in order to provoke violence against me in order to intimidate me into silence. They create so much negativity around me that if some bigots carry out violent acts against me, they can appear totally justified, as for instance they did with Kamlesh Tiwari who was slaughtered with brutality for defending Hindu Dharma against malicious abuse.

Cyber Terrorism on @Twitter by Organized Gangsters:

Speaking specifically about @Twitter, certain known handles coupled with anonymous accounts have subjected me to well organised hate campaigns on Twitter.

1. They are indulging in criminal intimidation, cyber bullying, cyber harassment and defamation aimed at outraging my modesty and dignity as a woman by posting insulting, abusive and obscene comments against me;
2. They have carried out a series of campaigns urging their network to mass report my personal Twitter account in order to terrorise and intimidate me into silence through organised gangsterism amounting to cyber terrorism;
3. They are openly instigating that I be beaten up, that i.e. they want me to be lynched publicly;
4. They want to see me locked up in “some kind of jail” for life and the key thrown away so that I rot inside for life. This means the jail won’t be that of Bharat Sarkar but the kind of jails the Taliban uses!
5. They are publicly instigating bigoted elements to pour venom on me, deliberately directed at harming my reputation in the eyes of right-thinking members of society and causing grievous damage to my public image;
6. They have subjected me to communally targeted and religious hate;
7. They have maligned my otherwise stellar reputation so that I become an object of derision and contempt in the eyes of not just Muslims, but also their supporters among leftists and other susceptible, impressionable minds. Young relatives of mine are getting very adversely affected by such character assassination on a large scale.
8. If I had actually committed any wrongs, they could have easily filed a legal case against me but they keep urging the police (especially of the TMC-ruled state of Bengal) to arrest me without any substantial charge. The absence of even a single police or court case against me indicates that their charges are part of a propaganda war to silence all those who stand up in defence of India and its much wronged ancient civilisation.

@TeamSaath, the Leader of Cyber Terrorism: This handle run anonymously has led several mass reporting campaigns against me. It is leading a well-organised pack of trolls to abuse and ‘mass report’ me in order to pressurise @Twitter to suspend my account permanently. The reach of this handle is enormous because it seems to be part of a well-organised anti-India network. The extent of damage being done to my reputation can be gauged by the fact that:

From July 24 to July 30, 2021 - in just one week alone- the hateful tweets posted by this handle demanding my suspension from Twitter reached 3.1 million persons.

@TeamSaath was able to generate 2,700 tweets targeting me as part of “mass reporting” during the above-mentioned week. All of these 2,700 Tweets carried the #SuspendMadhuKishwar tag. The operator(s) of this handle, started in November 2020, has (have) run several such hate campaigns against me over the last few months.

Sample of tweets, aimed at banning me, invoking violence, spreading hate against me and my community, thereby constituting serious criminal offences:

@TeamSaathTweet dated July 24, 2021: Are you lending your platform to be weaponised against the Muslims @TwitterSafety? Nothing, absolutely nothing explains the immunity this Islamophobe is enjoying on @Twitter. Each day she ridicules your rules! Suspend @madhukishwar. Please report her for “Directing hate”.

Within minutes, the chorus of this well-organised network of anti-nationals and cyber terrorists start ranting in an orchestrated manner, as is evident from the samples given below. Some of them appear to be bots but some even have a number of verified handles baying for my suspension. Twitter has suspended my account multiple times at their behest and restored it only after forcing me to remove tweets which had no abusive words. But @Twitter takes no action against their abusive tweets hurled at me.

A sample of offensive content posted against me is reproduced here in under:

Farhaad @Farhaad36677304 writes on July 30: Yehkutiyahai.[She is bitch] #SuspendMadhuKishwar.

Point to Note: Twitter took no action against Farhaad for calling me a kutiya, which is one of the most humiliating abuses a woman can be subjected to.

Azam Pathan@azamoptom writes on July 29: ज़हरीलीनागिन[Poisonous Snake]
#SuspendMadhuKishwar.

Point to Note: No action by Twitter against this abuse.

Mike's Chatter @FekuKiGoliyan writes on July 25: Why this Madhu Kishwar should not be beaten up publically(sic) with shoes, even our fake secular feminist will oppose that action the way they oppose Shiv Sainik’s action on Kangna poster.

Point to Note: This is openly urging people to lynch me. But Twitter took no action.

Mike's Chatter @FekuKiGoliyan had written again on July 25: In 2024, please ensure Madhu Kishwar is thrown into some kind of prison and the keys thrown away. Mad bitch.

Points to Note: This is spine chilling for the following reasons: They seem all prepared to defeat the present regime in 2024, which is legally no crime. But then they intend to unleash Bengal type violence on all those who do not join them in demonising and bringing down BJP or PM Modi.

Notice also the use of the term ‘Mad Bitch”. Apart from being a sexist insult, what do people do with mad bitches? Kill them! Moreover, the term, “some kind of prison” clearly implies that they don’t intend to get me locked up in a government prison because the government prison would not throw away the keys after jailing a person declared an “offender”.

The government of India also follows due process trial before conviction. What they have in mind are prisons of the kind run by ISIS in Syria where they brutalise Yezidi women as sex slaves or the kind of jails maintained by the Taliban in areas under the charge of terror brigades.

Dr Mohammed Ismail @smile47_ismail writes on July 29: #SuspendMadhuKishwarZheerelekedehai sale…[They are poisonous vermin]

Point to Note: Dr Ismail does not call me alone poisonous vermin but the abusive term “साले“ and “कीड़ेare plural nouns. This amounts to calling me and others like me, (meaning Hindus?) poisonous vermin. And what do you do with vermin, except destroy them! For the record, Dr. Ismail claims to be an “Ayush doctor”.

Shahnawaz Ansari(@shanu_sab),another cyber bully & abuser calls me,ख़ंजिर के नाल की ड़ायन। — a term I have never heard before. To quote his tweet:कभी तो शर्म कर ले ख़ंजिर के नाल की ड़ायन और कितना ज़हर भरा है तेरे अंदर? तूम हिला है।तुझे शर्म नहीं आती एक समुदाय के ख़िलाफ़ झूठ फैलाते हुए? आए दिन ज़लील होती है लेकिन अपनी आदत नाहिं छोड़ती बेगैरत।

[Have some shame, you witch of Khanjir race. How much more poison do you have inside you? Don’t you feel ashamed of spreading hatred against a community? Every day you are humiliated/shamed but you shameless woman, you do not give up your habit]

Point to Note: He even sent a WhatsApp message on my personal phone from his mobile number 7********6 declaring that he is part of a group that reports “abusive” accounts to get them suspended. He too has been leading vile hysteria against me among Muslim youth urging all he can reach to mass report me for “spreading hatred against Muslims”. Notice his foul language. But he has the gall to accuse me of being hateful when I am not given to hurling personal abuses but always base my comments on verifiable facts. If ever I go wrong, I am the first person to accept my lapse and make the required correction.

Sayema@_sayema, another nasty troll with over 925K followers with a verified account. As a close associate of @TeamSaath, she gloated:

Please report her for ‘Hate’. She has been propagating hate and bigotry shamelessly. @verified how is this acceptable?@TwitterIndia, please suspend her handle permanently. Despite many temporary suspensions, she hasn’t learnt any lessons!#SuspendMadhuKishwar@TeamSaath

Point to Note: Sayema uses such nasty words for me time and again. She has repeatedly joined campaigns to get me suspended. For the record, I have never followed her, never retaliated or even bothered to respond to her. And yet I am the hatemonger and she a paragon of virtue.

Nazre Imam @inazreimam wrote: Hindutva terror-minded Sanghi bigot and hate-bornfilth like @madhukishwar should be permanently suspended. #SuspendMadhuKishwar Please report her for ‘Hate’. She has been propagating hate and bigotry shamelessly. @verified how is this acceptable? @TwitterIndia

Point to Note: I am being labelled terror-minded and hateful just because I oppose jihadi and Maoist violence. Even though, I have no connection with RSS and am yet being abused as ‘Sanghi bigot”.

Noor Alam@archnooralam: Please suspend her handle permanently. Despite many temporary suspensions, she hasn’t learnt any lessons!#SuspendMadhuKishwar@TeamSaath

Point to Note: Robotically following command of @TeamSaath@IsranRar1:#SuspendMadhuKishwar. Enough is enough suspend this shit now A certified hater.

Point to Note: Calling me “shit” is their idea of demonstrating love while me, the object of such abuses, is portrayed as “hateful”.

Syeda Sadia Hasan @CyberWarrior SS writes: #SuspendMadhuKishwaraccount @Twitter @TeamSaath @madhukishwar A certified hater”

Point to Note: She is blindly following the spoon-fed script of hate against me, as part of a concerted campaign without any provocation from my side. PROFESSOR @Fraudprofess0r like several other trolls posted GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) of a poisonous snake and call me a ZehreeliNaagin.

Annexure 2 is a photograph of a venom spitting cobra. Such images have been posted countless times to vilify me and provoke violence against me.

Such images have been posted countless times to vilify me and provoke violence against me.

AveekSen@aveeksen posted on July 27: Indian ruling party @BJP4Indiatroll Professor @madhukishwarlabels as Jihadi award-winning journalist @dansiddiquikilled by the Taliban just because he's Muslim. Who all RTed/shared it?? First report by us at @hateSWATteam#HateSpeech#Misinformationhttps://hateswatteam.com/?p=70

Points to Note: I have no connection with BJP or any other political party. Secondly, I opposed the demand for Rs 1 crore award to the family of Danish Siddiqui, not because he was a Muslim but because he was a leading member of Jamia University’s #BreakUpIndiaGang and had mobilised hate soaked campaign against CAA using false propaganda.

EedMudasir @syeed_mudasir wrote on July 25: Does it never embarrass you that you have become practically synonymous with fakery and cheap misinformation? Is there absolutely nothing positive in your life? Why so…toxic?

Point to Note: This is a good example of उलटा चोर कोतवाल को डांटे! While I am being subjected to a toxic hate campaign, I am being accused of being toxic. Mudasiris a Kashmiri Muslim and his Twitter handle carries the following advice…

“…And Allah (SWT) will not punish them, while they seek forgiveness.”
Does it imply that unless I, as a Kafir, seek forgiveness of his Allah and convert to Islam, I cannot be forgiven?

On April 2020, he retweeted Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s tweet:

We strongly condemn the racist Hindutva Supremacist Modi Govt's continuing attempts to illegally alter the demography of IOJK in violation of all international laws & treaties. The new Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Order 2020 is a clear violation of the 4th Geneva Convention.

Thus in his view, PM Modi is a “racist Hindutva supremacist” acting lawlessly in “Indian Occupied” JK. This gives you an idea of the depth of his pro-Pakistan sentiments.

@Raiyanazmi14tweeted: Ku re jahilsanghan the kutaqleefhui.. [You jaahilSanghan, what is bothering you?]

Point to Note: Even though I have never had any association with the RSS, an oft-used abusive term hurled at me is “Sanghan”.

Modi Bengal Haar Gaya @5ytForRyt Writes: Freebee biryani wali aunty @gunjankapoor @TejinderBagga, Khaki ChaddiSanghanmodi ki Jasoos Hai [Freebee Biryani aunty Gunjan Kapoor, Tejinder Bagga and “Khaki ChaddiSanghan (meaning me) are spies of Modi. This is accompanied by a cartoon of PM Modi in half lungi peeping into people’s homes through a keyhole.

Point to Note: Khaki Chaddi Sanghan is an insulting abusive term. Moreover, we know how even in places like Kashmir or Afghanistan, Islamists slaughter those who they suspect of being government spies or informers.

TRP king @sid80dude: Why is your khaki nicker is in a twist ? You give Bharat Ratana to Savarkar or Chota Rajan and be happy.

Point to Note: He is maliciously equating a venerated freedom fighter with an underworld don!

@singhgurinder85: Keep your mouth shut you piece of shit Sanghan... Don't interfere into Sikh's issue.

Points to Note: The above is clearly a Pak-propped Khalistani or islamist posing as a militant Sikh. Since RSS is always defamed as a “fascist” outfit, I too get pushed into that noxious space even though I have never been part of RSS. This amounts to criminal defamation, as it is a false statement made to malign my reputation.

Further, it is aimed at denigrating the RSS which amounts to insulting an organisation only because it has a history of being associated with Hindu causes even though they are forever in the appeasement mode vis a vis Muslims.

Screenshots of offensive profiles and handles on @Twitter along with respective URL are enclosed with the present complaint and marked as Annexure 3 Colly. The offensive content i.e. tweets, pictures and GIF along with corresponding URLs are enclosed with the present complaint and marked as Annexure 4 Colly.

No Retaliation or Abusive Tweets by Me: It is noteworthy that I have never ever used abusive language against anyone on SM or even in real life. Nor have I ever picked up cudgels against any of these hateful handles. In fact, I do not even follow them. I have simply ignored the abuses they hurl at me.

Sadly, this has emboldened them no end. My only fault is that I subject all politicians, including Islamic leaders and even the prime minister of India, to critical scrutiny. I oppose the appeasement policies of the Indian state and do not subscribe to the propaganda that Muslims are a persecuted minority in India when in fact they have better rights in India than in any Islamic country and special privileges and rights within our Constitution that are not available even to the so-called majority community.

As someone who comes from a family of 1947 Partition refugees and refugees from Kashmir, I have a right to be critical of the politics that led to ethnic cleansing of Hindus in what became Pakistan as well as in Kashmir.

Coordinated Handiwork of India/Hindu Haters: These tweets are a good example of the coordinated handiwork of anti-social, habitual India bashers using bullying, defamation, and intimidation to trample upon my fundamental rights. These offenders not only attack me personally but their tweets also amount to spreading hatred against all those Hindus who stand up for India, their culture and faith. It is frightening to think that in one week alone their tweets vilifying me reached 31 lakh persons. (See Annexure 1).

I will submit many more such hateful comments from Twitter once the investigation starts.

Repeated Suspension of My Twitter Account & Major Setbacks:

Thanks to this sustained hate campaign, my Twitter account has faced numerous assaults.

I have reliable information that my Twitter account has been red flagged by Twitter. Red flagged handles are removed from Twitter’s suggestion algorithm to stunt their growth of followers.

Once I reached a following of 22.63 lakhs in May 2018, my account was shadow-banned and/or firewalled so that none of my followers get to automatically view my tweets. They have to make the effort to search out my handle.

My account has witnessed daily decline of followers which is strange because my following was organic, not boosted artificially;

From May 2018, when my following was 22.63 lakhs, today my following has come down to 20.17 lakhs. Had it happened organically, I would not mind. But this is the result of systematic targeting and attempts to marginalise and silence me and decimate the rashtravadi forces.

At one time my account was hijacked and all kinds of objectionable material posted on it and made inaccessible to me; which not only amounts to unauthorised use but also breaches my right to privacy.

On July 25 when they got my Twitter account suspended for a day for the third time,this is what was said”

@TeamSaath gloated: Finally, some action from @Twitter on @MadhuKishwar. Her Tweet has been deleted by @Twitter and account locked for 12 hours. But that’s not enough. @TwitterSafety, enforce your own rules and #SuspendMadhuKishwar for being a repeat offender.”

My response to the above tweet of TeamSaath contained not a single abusive or nasty word:

@madhukishwar 27 July: Ultachor kotwal ko daante! आपकी हिम्मत को सलाम Did no one ever tell U that there is life even after @Twitter? You & I are engaged in an epochal battle! By trying to get me suspended from @Twitter you only prove that our worst fears are not unfounded & strengthen our resolve. Enjoy!

On July 29, @TeamSaath launched yet another campaign to target me:

We request all verified handles (tagged) to report @madhukishwar under the head “Abusive or harmful/directing hate against a protected category”

Point to Note: They tagged several known handles like @sushantsays @RichaChadha @sakshijoshi @_sayeema @MANJUTToons etc, none of which I follow or engage with. These people are clearly part of this organised gang either as paid trolls or due to ideological affiliation.

Professional Hit Jobs by @TeamSaath: I am not the sole target of @TeamSaath. They are professionally trained to do hit jobs. On July 24 @TeamSaath gloated over their success in getting accounts of Ankit Saxena and Just4India suspended. On July 26, @TeamSaath proudly announced that @Arpittaneja8 account has been suspended following their campaign. They also got @TheSkinDoctor account suspended for some days. This clearly shows that this group has been set up with the specific purpose of silencing all those who do not fall in line with the Islamist mandate. It has in effect arrogated to itself the right to be a super censorship body on social media.

Last month the same bunch of hounds got me suspended from Club House for a whole week to sabotage a series of discussions we had scheduled on important issues of national importance.

Assault on My Fundamental Right to Free Speech & Character Assassination: This concerted hate campaign tramples upon my fundamental right to free speech. They want to choke me because I am among those who openly challenge the fake narratives being peddled by ‘BreakUpIndiaForces’ and am read with respect not just within India but also globally. This is because my writing is based on meticulous research, not just casual opinion mongering. My writing poses a threat to their subversive agendas because they cannot pick holes in it.

Therefore, they resort to character assassination and intimidation so that potential new readers stay away from me. This has had a very adverse impact on my following and my reputation, especially among today’s youth who are not necessarily familiar with my past track record and learn everything from social media rather than serious reading. Apart from this, it has also impacted my health adversely.

Risks to My Life & Liberty from Cyber Terrorism: Several well-wishers have warned me that my life is under threat because those who are being instigated to see me as an enemy of Islam. It is well known that Muslims believe in carrying out “सरधड़सेअलग” mandate of their mazhab for dealing with anyone who does not surrender before their dictates. They are brazen enough to give a call to beat me up, lynch me publicly, as is obvious in some of the tweets quoted above.

Some are threatening to fix me for life after the 2024 elections, as is happening in Bengal.

Openly calling for me to be ‘Publicly Beaten’ (Mob Lynching) Amounts to Cyber Terrorism. Therefore, they need to be booked under the provisions of Information Technology Act, 2000 also. As Advocate @AdvVikramSingh put it:

Be it Baloch activist #KarimaBalochk. In Canada, #SabeenMahmudor Pak journo #SajidHussaink. In Sweden, or the deaths of apostates/rational humans who argue on logic, there’s one thing in common-their opponents wanted to SILENCE THEM & BULLY EVERYONE. This is akin to Taliban.

Point to Note: I happen to be living near Shaheen Bagh which is infested with extremist Muslims. With such a ferocious hate campaign unleashed against me, I can be easily targeted for slaughter like Kamlesh Tiwari.

Criminal Conspiracy Behind It: Calling for/instigating/abetting people to mass report an individual's personal account is no less than a criminal conspiracy under the relevant provisions of IPC. Targeted cyber bullying, harassment also attracts the charge of “criminal intimidation”. Even a cursory review of their tweets and writing on other social media platforms will confirm that they all belong to the #BreakUpIndiaGang. And I hurt them because mine is a strong voice in defence of India. I strongly suspect that they are acting at the behest of Pakistani agencies and urge you to investigate these links.

Such vicious attacks on a person who is widely respected as a ‘voice of reason’ are actually an attack on India’s integrity and sovereignty. They went for me even during the Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA agitation. If their obnoxious activities are allowed unhindered, they will succeed in subverting the fundamental rights of people to express their views openly and deter rational, logical and honest citizens to stand in solidarity with patriotic voices.

As per the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, recently notified by the Central Government, the content as posted by these hate mongers against me shall also be communicated to Twitter.com

My Prayer: Given the seriousness of the offences, I request you to kindly investigate the matter and take suitable action against the concerned offenders and protect me from potential harm and further intimidation. The offences mentioned in this complaint amount to cognisable offences under the Indian law.

Thus far, whenever I have reported an abusive tweet to you by some hateful Twitter handle, you have taken no action. But you have acted against me multiple times without justification under pressure of malicious mass reporting. I am not the kind who threatens or abuses anyone. And yet I face punitive action, not those who are actually harming people by tarnishing their hard-won reputation. Such partisan conduct does not go well with an internationally-reputed public platform. I sincerely hope, you will handle this threat to my safety and security as well as to my fundamental rights as a citizen of India with the seriousness it deserves.