Thread by @Article14live

The Rs-35,000 Maulana Azad govt fellowship that Shamsher Singh, son of a Punjabi Sikh daily wage worker, received every month did more than fund his PhD. It threw a lifeline to his penurious family. All this has now ended. Follow this THREAD

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Contending—without explaining how—that it overlapped with other scholarships, #Modi govt in Dec 2022 ended fellowships for minority MPhil, PhD students. As @ainulrhbr & @arshiiqureshi report, this overlap isn’t possible & reveals a larger trend.

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The demise of the 13-yr-old Maulana Azad Fellowships is one of a series of moves by the #Modi govt to end, reduce or make it difficult to access financial assistance to minority communities, in particular to #Muslims.

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2.1 million or 5.5% of 30.8 million college students are Muslim, according to the All India Survey for Higher Education 2020, the lowest rate of all communities in proportion to their population, including scheduled castes & scheduled tribes.

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Fellowship money funded Singh’s sister’s marriage, paid for the education of 2 siblings & helped the family get by—especially after his father’s monthly income of Rs 12,000 as a daily-wage worker stopped after he was stricken by cancer.

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“My father cannot work, so everyone is dependent on me:” Singh, 27, who was in the last year of the 5-year fellowship meant for Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Parsis & Jains. 1,000 others like him must now figure out what to do.

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Enthused by his academic achievements, Singh’s uncle, a textile worker, put him through college at Amritsar’s Guru Nanak Dev University, where he got a gold medal. Singh hoped to return the favour when he finished his Phd & got a job.

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“It was appalling to know that such a prestigious fellowship was being terminated,” said Singh. Now, instead of focusing on his Phd, he is considering giving tuitions to earning money or teaching at a college as a contract teacher.

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In Feb 2022, govt slashed funding to the 34-yr-old Maulana Azad Education Foundation—a nonprofit that administers a variety of education & skilling opportunities for “educationally backward” minorities—99%, from Rs 90 crore to Rs 1 lakh.

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On 25 Nov 2022, India’s ministry for minority affairs @MOMAIndia discontinued the 21-yr-old Begum Hazrat Mahal pre-matric scholarships for minorities, for classes 1 to 8, retaining them only for classes 9 to 12.

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On 14 Jany 2023, the govt stopped 18-yr-old interest subsidy on education loans for students from minority communities studying abroad. Banks were told the programme would end in March, but no reason was assigned, no announcement made.

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National president of @BJP4India minority morcha @Jamalsiddiqui_ said Maulana Azad fellowship was “unnecessary”, was “pushed for spectacle” to “please #Muslims”. Minorities, he said, could get “other scholarships or fellowships”.

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