Democracy in Higher Education

Social scientists are well aware of the trappings of social diversity and the politics that emanates from such diversity, which can take the form of stubborn historical inequality and also explicit forms of discrimination. Many of them spend their careers thinking and writing about discrimination and inequality, but academia itself is a field where this politics of diversity plays out. In Indian social science education, there are entrenched norms as a result of which women, Dalit, tribal and minority students can be systematically underprivileged. This session is not about exposing this politics in higher education, neither is it to lament on the lack of democracy, rather, this session seeks to think through the ways in which democracy can be fostered in higher education. What kind of supportive institutions and practices can be created to offset the prevalent undemocratic norms?

Hyderabad is a centre of many educational institutions and there is a large student population in the city. Higher education in social science is also an option that many individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds are increasingly accessing. In this light, a discussion about democracy in higher education is of utmost importance.

Plenary Session on the Right to Housing

Right to Housing is not among the explicitly stated fundamental rights listed in the Constitution of India. However, some courts have interpreted the right to housing as an essential part of the right to life under article 21. In the absence of a clear mandate on the right to housing, what are the bases on which housing schemes are designed? How do the poor, in the absence of low-income group housing stock, provide for themselves? What are the movements that have arisen around the right to housing and how do they articulate this right? These questions point to some of the aspects of the housing discourse which will be discussed at this plenary session. In a situation where migration into cities is persistently growing, and the construction of houses is heavily targeted to the middle-classes, thinking about the right to housing or housing-for-all is imperative.

Informal Cities

The Sengupta Committee Report released in 2011 estimates that around 92% of the total workforce in the country is part of the “informal sector”. This “informal sector” is actually extremely diverse. It consists everything from self-employed workers to unregistered SMEs to the black market and several other varieties in between. This informality of commerce and labour contracts has gained crucial importance in the study of cities particularly in the developing countries of the world. Its relevance, however, is not restricted to urban studies. As the Sengupta committee itself points out, there is a massive vacuum of social security given the sheer magnitude of the informal sector. Along with social security, understanding the informal sector is also of vital importance to planning and policy discourses. In the absence of information about this sector, and given its ambiguous legal standing, this sector is mostly overlooked. The violence of this oversight is brought into sharp relief by that remarkable figure, 92%. Alongside this informal sector of the economy there is also widespread informality in the administration of cities. The functioning of large parts of the city, not just slums, but often even middle-class areas takes place through technically “illegal” arrangements between the administration and the citizens. This roundtable brings together scholars who have studied and stressed on the informality of cities throughout their careers. The idea is to explore various lenses which make this informality visible, in different ways, and what are the things we know about its functioning.