“I am from Bangladesh and I eat fish,” Sudeepto Das told Scroll over the phone from Dhaka.

On July 15, the South Asian University in the National Capital Region expelled the 26-year-old scholar following a clash that broke out on campus in February over fish curry being served in the varsity mess. Scroll has seen the order.

A group of students, including members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which is backed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, had stormed into the university mess on February 26 – the day of Mahashivratri – to stop fish being served. They alleged that serving non-vegetarian food on the day of a Hindu festival was “ideological terrorism”.

Das said he objected when the ABVP members tried to throw away the food and rough up the mess secretary, Yashada Sawant. “I am a Hindu. I am well acquainted with Hinduism,” said Das. “But these people wanted to impose their upper-caste notions [of food] on others.”

The scuffle led to a complaint against Das and his eventual expulsion. The proctor of the South Asian University, in an order dated July 15, found Das “guilty of serious misconduct” on the issue of serving non-vegetarian food on the occasion of Mahashivratri in the students’ mess.

Das alleged that the university targeted him, without taking any action against the ABVP members. “They know that I am a Bangladeshi and I cannot do anything.”

The ABVP welcomed the university’s decision to expel Das and fine Sawant for “her failure to uphold order in the dining facility”. It said the verdict has “decisively exposed the malicious conspiracy orchestrated by left-aligned student elements on campus”.

Das, a PhD final year student, came to India in 2009 and has studied at several institutions in the country. He did his schooling at the Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith in Deoghar, graduated from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University, with a Bachelor’s degree in economics. He had done his Master’s degree in Economics from South Asian University in 2021.

Scroll sent emails to officials of the South Asian University, seeking their response to Das’s allegations. Scroll also called up and sent a text message to the university’s public relations officer. This report will be updated if they reply.

The incident

On the afternoon of February 26, observed as Mahashivratri, a group of students had stormed into the mess hall of South Asian University, Das said. He alleged that they started to misbehave with mess workers under the “pretense of enforcing a religious restriction on non‑vegetarian food”, Das said.

However, Das pointed out that there had been “no formal communication from the university on barring the serving of non-vegetarian food”. “They were not devotees, but provocateurs,” he said.

The mess secretary, Sawant, tried to stop the crowd. “One man associated with the ABVP tried to throw away the fish container,” Das said. The group of 10-12 students, allegedly affiliated with the ABVP and RSS, “surrounded” the mess secretary and tried to rough her up.

“When I saw a female student surrounded and physically intimidated while trying to defend the food meant for all, I intervened,” said Das. “My action was an instinctive response to protect a fellow human being from clear aggression.”

Das said he pushed aside the aggressor. “Immediately after, the group turned its wrath on both of us, assaulting us physically while shouting obscenities,” he said. “Video footage captures this assault vividly, confirming what the female representative and I had lived through.”

The ABVP accused Sawant of “deceitfully” serving fish to Hindu students on Mahashivaratri. Sawant, who graduated from the university after completing her master’s in sociology earlier this year, told Scroll that there was separate food for devotee students on Mahashivratri.

She alleged that when she had tried to intervene that day, she was shoved and touched inappropirately by one of the members of the group, Ratan Singh of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Scroll sent Singh a message asking about Sawant’s allegations but he did not reply.

“I had already filed official sexual harassment complaints against Singh,” said Sawant. But the University Complaints Committee, which deals with sexual harassment, never acted on her complaint and neither did senior university officials, she said.

“They [ABVP and Sangh members] have this immunity and impunity from the university,” she said.

After the confrontation, the ABVP members filed a complaint with the proctor against Das and Sawant. “The university started proceedings against us. But no inquiry was initiated against the ABVP people despite a complaint by Sawant,” said Das. He was accused of hurting religious sentiments, instigating violence and harassing his peers.

Das alleged that the “entire machinery of the institution was swiftly and single-mindedly turned” against him because he had in the past questioned the university administration’s decisions. “I had protested against the arbitrary deductions of scholarships across the university,” he said. “For this, the administration chose to single me out.”

The investigation

Das said the proctorial inquiry was used to label him as “anti-Indian”. “They [ABVP members] shared the screenshot of an Instagram post where I had pointed out India’s infant mortality rates,” said Das. “They called it anti-national.”

He claimed that during the inquiry, the ABVP member who led the crowd that had barged into the mess had admitted that the university authorities had not authorised him to remove the food from the mess.

“His admission should have led to an impartial investigation,” Das said.

Instead, the proctor issued the expulsion order in Das’s absence – when he was in Dhaka.

Das pointed out that his experience fit into a larger pattern of universities cracking down on dissenting students.

“This is not only my story,” he said. “It is emblematic of how academic institutions can become [prey to] an ideological apparatus that shields some, silences others, and uses so‑called discipline as a cover for suppressing principled dissent.”

He claimed that the South Asian University, which was established by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in 2010 with taxpayer money from all eight member countries, had let down its founding principles.

“The very notion of ‘academic freedom’ has been hollowed out by a system that prefers obedience over dialogue, punishment over justice,” said Das.

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