IIT-H sacks gay activist Ashley Tellis Nikhila Henry, TNN, Jun 11, 2010, 12.36am IST
HYDERABAD: In an AMU redux south of the Vindhyas, Indian Institute of Technology (Hyderabad) management sacked gay rights activist and faculty member Ashley Tellis, apparently discomfited by his sexual orientation. The academic, with around 20 years of experience, was shown the door last fortnight less than a year after joining IIT-H. Being on probation, Tellis's services were terminated summarily. However, reliable sources said he was asked to leave for his "unlawful behaviour" and "deviant mischief". IIT-Hyderabad director Uday Desai did not take calls and his office said he would be available only after June 21. It's learnt that Tellis's exit from IIT was being planned by the management ever since AMU's S R Siras was sacked for being gay in February this year. Tellis has filed a right to information (RTI) application seeking reasons behind his sudden termination and intends to have a face-off with IIT-H. Tellis was assistant professor with the liberal arts department and is a well-known voice in the gay rights movement in the country. A published author, Tellis has a PhD from Cambridge University and a long teaching career. He faced strong resistance at IIT-H from the day he joined. "Ashley's entry was controversial with several groups among IIT faculty not wanting him in. There was internal bickering and resistance right from the beginning," said a source. Prior to Tellis's appointment, several faculty members had objected to his appointment. "There were group mails sent against his appointment, asking the IIT director not to appoint him," a source said. Some faculty members blamed Tellis for being too candid in discussing gay issues on campus. His article on `man-boy' love in a national daily further ruffled feathers. "The institute has a humanities wing but it is meant for technical education. It was found that students were extremely annoyed with Tellis's behaviour," said a faculty member. However, a number of students disagreed with the faculty members. "He was one of the best teachers. Not many students had problems with him until the administration and other faculty members began asking questions about Tellis's behaviour in classroom," said a student. Students were even told to "be careful" with Tellis and "report abuse", the student said. When contacted, university authorities refused comment saying only the director was authorized to answer these questions. "Tellis is no longer with us. We do not know whether he was sacked or left on his own," said an official in the director's office. A scan of IIT-Hyderabad website revealed that Tellis's name has been deleted from the faculty list. Director in charge U V Varadaraju, when insisted upon by TOI, said, "Prof Desai is out of station." Sudheer Chella Rajan, HoD of Liberal Arts Department and Tellis's boss could not be reached despite attempts. Tellis's close associates said that this is not the first time he was targeted for being gay. He had complained of being forced to quit or being terminated for being articulate about gay rights even earlier. His stints at Bombay University, where he taught in 1991, and later at St Stephen's College, Delhi, too weren't pleasant for Tellis, and he quit both jobs. "Tellis was under constant pressure of being sacked even during his stint at English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad," said one of his associates. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/IIT-H-sacks-gay-activist-Ashley-Tellis/articleshow/6034644.cms * * * Dalit, feminist and gay? Ashley Tellis <http://expressbuzz.com/searchresult/ashley-tellis> First Published : 13 Dec 2008 11:38:00 AM IST Last Updated : 13 Dec 2008 12:42:13 PM IST My father was a Dalit from Amravati in Maharashtra, a bonded slave on the streets of Bombay who was adopted by my maternal grandparents, Roman Catholic once-upon-a-time Brahmins. My mother was a schizophrenic who not supposed to marry at all and was technically his sister but went on to marry him. I am a gay activist. All my life, these three markers — my ‘untouchable’ father, my ‘mad’ mother and my ‘sick’ gayness have haunted me, hindered me, marked me. My father’s caste, his skin colour (he was pitch black; my mother snow white, and I am pitch black and have been racially abused by upper-caste ndians from all religious backgrounds all my life), his dubious origins followed me through the implicitly caste-ridden, racist, prejudiced world of Goan Catholics in which I grew up in Bombay; my mother’s mental illness has been used to pity me, pathologise me, explain me, contain me; I am gay and have been harassed as a gay man, by Brahmin and Dalit alike, all my life. Over the years, through a painful processes of recognition, questioning and processing, I brought my gayness, my Dalitness and what became my feminism to speak to one another and my politics is built from a conversation between these three axes of my formation. This has made all three constituencies — gay politics, dalit politics, feminism — deeply uncomfortable with me. Gay politics in India has not even begun to grapple with caste; Dalit politics remains as homophobic as any other politics; feminism in India is lesbophobic and homophobic and implicitly upper caste. I have sought and continue to seek to build bridges between these three kinds of politics, to show the connections between the forms of oppression they are against and to put pretentious NGO terms like ‘intersectionality’ and ‘lateral linkages’ in action. As a Delhi University teacher, for example, I surprised Dalit student organisers and Dalit students in general both by my ‘colourful’ presence at all their struggles against the feudal and casteism-ridden university, students and institutions, as I was a publicly known homosexual and dressed unconventionally. The surprise was not pleasant for them; they did not want me around. Dalits share the general homophobia of the Indian populace — lower and upper caste — with not much difficulty. How are Dalits not able to see the obvious connections in the oppression of gays at the hands of heteropatriarchy and their own suffering of at the hands of Brahminical patriarchy? How is my host at a dinner party being upbraided by his roommate for offering me food in the house and polluting the dishes because I, as a homosexual, had eaten from them different from and similar to a lower-caste person polluting an upper-caste person by his shadow? How do I change this unwillingness to see and learn from each other? How do I fit in? How do I find a place in Dalit politics which is as close to me as my gay politics or my feminist politics and how to make each of these politics learn from each other? What does a same-sex, feminist Dalit critique look like? How do we put into practice a politics based on all the complex histories of the marginalised that form us? Even as I speak from a position of “experience-based authenticity” (as the son of a Dalit, the son of a ‘mad’ woman, a gay man), that great weapon with which to stop all introspection and debate, I want to build a politics from a recognition of the multiple marginalised histories that form me without the arrogance of the authenticity claim. Each of these marginalised identities teaches me the importance of self-reflexivity, change, the need to listen to other kinds of oppression and learn from them, work with them. I think all of us should reflect on the multi plicity of oppressions and work together rather than become gatekeepers of Dalit or gay or this or that form of politics. * * * Well beyond Khairlanji http://www.himalmag.com/Well-beyond-Khairlanji_nw4421.html Ashley J. Tellis http://www.carnegieendowment.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=expert_view&expert_id=198 IIT: Intolerant Ignorant Totalitarianism http://rimibchatterjee.net/livelikeaflame/?tag=ashley-tellis
