The revised fee structure published on BITS Pilani’s admission website in the first week of May was the trigger to a chain of events that led to protests and mass mobilization of students on campus during their comprehensive examinations. These protests continued in various cities across the country during the summer break as well. What started off as a gathering of students in the Ram Bhawan QT culminated with student representatives meeting the honourable Chancellor, Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla, followed by an email by the Vice Chancellor Prof. Souvik Bhattacharyya. The email promised an increase in financial assistance to students, along with an improvement of facilities and infrastructure in all three Indian campuses.

5th May 

The new structure listed the semester tuition fee as ₹1,59,000 – more than three times the fees in 2010-11. The student community felt that the rise in fees was getting out of hand and there was a need to approach the administration regarding the issue. In a gathering organised by Student Union (SU) members and the then SU President, Bharatharatna Puli, on Saturday, 5th May, a consensus was reached to organize a peaceful protest in the central auditorium on the following day. Despite the ongoing comprehensive exams, over the night, memes and posters were created and circulated to increase BITSian participation.

6th May 

A packed Audi saw many students holding up hand-drawn posters and partaking in vociferous sloganeering. Siddhartha Namburi, an ex-Presidential candidate who would go on to be a key figure during the protests, addressed the crowd. Along with former Senator Saurabh Shetty and Senator Jai Agarwal, Namburi also took part in a debate with the Director, Prof. AK Sarkar regarding the fee hike. By the end of the day, #RollBackBITSPilaniFeeHike was trending at number one on multiple social media platforms and had come to the notice of several renowned journalists such as Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt.

The Vice Chancellor—who had so far not been on campus—arrived in the evening and stayed at VFAST. Initially, he refused to address the gathering in the auditorium and met only a few student representatives. This led to a march by the students demanding he address everyone present in the auditorium. The Vice Chancellor agreed to this, but later walked out on the students in the auditorium, citing lack of decorum. The students decided that the protest would continue until they received a satisfactory explanation. Mattresses and carpets were arranged, and many students sat outside VFAST, where the Vice Chancellor was staying.

7th May

The police got involved as the road outside VFAST was being blocked by the protestors. The students agreed to cooperate with the residents of Pilani, and cleared the road for those who needed to go through to C’not or Akshay. Later, some professors also met the students to listen to their concerns. The same night, the students relocated to VKB mess due to bad weather.

8th May 

The protest was relocated to the auditorium. The compres to be held in the morning were also delayed by three hours. After not getting the desired response from the authorities, the protest took a more symbolic route. The #ChangeForAChange campaign began, with protestors “donating” loose change in bowls which were kept outside the offices of the administrators.

A meeting between the directors of all the campuses and BITSAA International took place in the evening. Amidst this, several news agencies like The Hindu and The Deccan Chronicle started covering the fee hike protests. Political figures like Shashi Tharoor, Yogendra Yadav, and parties like AAP-Rajasthan also showed their support for the students through Twitter and Facebook.

A crowd of 500-odd people that thronged the Audi entrance went on a peaceful march around NAB, shining torchlights. At night, it was announced that the directors had spoken to Mr. Debu Bhattacharya, the advisor to Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla. BITSAA also posted an announcement the following morning on the outcome of their meeting, reaffirming that the way forward was through rational discussions with the administration.

As the semester came to an end, the students felt that their demands were still not met. The student representatives announced that the protests would not be called off until a reasonable explanation was given. They declared that the protests were on a pause and would resume if problems remained unresolved.

19th June 

The Directors of the three BITS Pilani campuses sent an email containing a communication from the Vice Chancellor. The Vice Chancellor assured that all the earnings were reinvested for the maintenance and development of the institute. He emphasised that the cost of expansion and modernisation of BITS Pilani was not being met from the on-campus students. He assured that the administration would investigate the concerns of the students and would evaluate the feasibility of adapting a model where the fee to be paid every year is known to the student during the time of admission. However, the students were asked to pay the fees as released earlier. The complexity of structuring the fees for an academic year was put forward as a reason for not rolling back the fee hike.

The students felt that the Vice Chancellor’s communication was a fundamental misunderstanding of their protests. The following day, the protests were officially resumed and students across the country renewed the resistance.

25th June

Some students, including Puli, Satyansh, and Namburi, received a Show Cause Notice from the Dean of Administration regarding their perceived acts of indiscipline. The committee constituted by the Vice Chancellor accused the representatives of instigating students to protest, blocking the main gate of the campus, and tarnishing the image of BITS Pilani. The representatives were asked to submit a valid explanation before the 29th of June.

29th June 

Namburi announced that the protests would go national. Specific locations in cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Indore, Lucknow, Jaipur, and Rourkela were chosen. Students and alumni were then asked to report at these locations and continue to carry out the peaceful protests. However, there was poor alumni turnout even in large centres such as Bengaluru.

Protests were also held outside Aditya Birla Group’s headquarters in Mumbai. The Mumbai Police and the security were well informed of the students’ plans and were thus able to curtail these protests. A letter was submitted to the Chief Security Officer of the Aditya Birla Group, demanding Chancellor intervention in the fee-hike issue.

After repeated requests, the Chancellor agreed to meet a student body on the 7th of July.

12th July

Namburi explained the proceedings of the meeting through a Facebook post. The meeting started off with a short presentation by the student representatives elaborating upon the fee hike problem, after which there was a detailed discussion of each point. In his post, Namburi stated that several assurances were made by the Chancellor.

One of the key points was the restructuring of the fees – it was decided that the total fee for a student’s duration of study would be explicitly mentioned at the time of joining. This amount would be distributed over the duration of the student’s enrollment in such a way that it would increase reasonably each year. The student representatives had to agree with the Chancellor that by accounting for inflation and keeping in mind the financial health of the institution, an increase in the fees for the upcoming batches was inevitable. Students would have to pay a lower amount in their first year, with the model accounting for a potential increase in parental income.

Namburi explained that another benefit of this would be that students who wouldn’t have been able to pay the amount as per OBOF structure in their first year might be able to afford it in the subsequent years. He also mentioned that the administration was currently working on this model and would soon come up with the figure for the total fees to be paid by the 2019 batch for the entire duration of their programme.

As the institute finances had already been planned to take the fee hike into account, a rollback of the fee hike was impossible. However, the Institute reviewed the fee structure for the students who are already enrolled in a programme and came up with the exact amount to be paid for the remaining duration in BITS.

A list of other benefits arose from the meeting with the Chancellor. The Chancellor assured the student body that there would be an increase in the number of scholarships provided to students and that the criteria for disbursement methods of Merit-Cum-Need (MCN) scholarships would be revamped to ensure that only eligible students were benefited. Efforts would be made to establish soft loans exclusively for students of BITS Pilani with low annual incomes. There would also be an increase in the number of scholarships dispensed from the Student Aid Fund (SAF). There were also promises of a separate fund allotted to students’ technical projects and the technical teams on campus. The Chancellor also agreed to other demands which would improve the quality of education, infrastructure, and facilities provided to the students, to justify the hike in fees. Efforts would be made to improve the PS-1 projects and increase the number of stations. Also, the speed and bandwidth of the internet would be improved in all the three campuses. The provision of 24×7 pharmacy and emergency facilities would be made, along with upgrading the existing medical facilities. Technology Business Incubators would also be started in all three campuses. After listing out the promises made by the Chancellor, Namburi officially called off the protests on behalf of the student representatives.

1st August 

The Vice Chancellor sent an email to all students regarding the actions based on the meeting of the student body with the Chancellor. The attached document contained a detailed description of all the points that Namburi had mentioned in his post, along with a table showing the tuition fees to be paid annually by all currently enrolled students, until their graduation.

The email marked the end of a 3-month long movement. While the initial aim of rolling back the fee hike was not met, overall the protests were deemed to be successful by Namburi and other student representatives.

7th August 

Satyansh sent an email to the student body heralding “a new beginning”. Regarding the email sent by the Vice Chancellor, he wrote, ‘On the issue of the fee structure, the fees submitted to Government of India by BITS Pilani while applying for the status of Institute of Eminence was more than the double we are paying right now. The revision of the fees was done bringing down the hike to 7.8%. With this, we may not have achieved everything that we had aimed for, but this makes it clear that the administration keeps the best interest of the students as their priority and will continue to undertake task for the betterment of all the BITSians’. He ended the email by ‘reassuring the faith of everyone in the Students’ Union’ and emphasizing the importance of having an united student body willing to make their voices heard.