cul-de-sach

Neoliberal economic policy adopted in India since 1991 has reached a critical stage with the deepening of the core sector penetration of global finance capital. Indian economy of today is particularly entwined with the global capitalism of the first world so much so that market fluctuations in the Wall Street acutely decide whether we are headed for a recession or a boom. The successive governments at the centre have completely dismantled most of the welfare state institutions of the earlier times and have unashamedly paved the way for neocolonial plunder of the people. Challenges facing the higher education sector in general and the Delhi University community specifically cannot be seen in isolation from these global and national developments. In fact, the sweeping changes at the level of national economic policy have a direct bearing on the paradigm shift in education sector.

The spurt in the number of self-financing courses/colleges and deemed universities are not in any sense a democratization of learning but surreptitious privatization. With the baggage of an elite, caste-based, selective tradition of the Gurukul and a colonial utilitarian model of education choking our veins, what we urgently need is democratic access to education. But to everyone’s dismay, the state has considerably withdrawn itself from the education sector, leaving the field open to the most unscrupulous elements. Whatever we have seen in the name of private participation are nothing but exercises in profiteering of the private capital and consequent pauperization of the masses.

The present state of affairs, where we find a willing abdication of fighting spirit by the academic community to the subversion in matters of policy implementation, appointments and day-to-day functioning of the universities/colleges, has thrown some general as well as particular challenges before us.

GENERAL CHALLENGES

1. Corporatization of Academia

Education is tailor made to suit the demands of the new age techno-corporates with utter disregard for the local needs. The close nexus between private funding and research in the academia is now out in the open and has gained smug legitimacy through reports like that of National Knowledge Commission. The establishment of Vedanta University in Orissa (a smokescreen to cover-up the exploitation of people, land and resources by the parent company) and the purported offer of VC-ship to the Chairman of NKC and mushrooming of off-campus centres of Foreign Universities with the aid of suitable alterations in national law and policy underscore the apprehensions on this regard. The syllabus is dictated and restructured by the exigencies of corporate logic. This has already resulted in the undermining of basic science studies and social science research and will have serious consequences for the ‘knowledge society’. Interestingly, various teacher training sessions like Orientation and Refresher programmes bear testimony to the normalization of corporatization and are now theatres of incessant corporate blitzkrieg.

We reject and resist this mindless rush to embrace corporate structure and outlook in academia.

2. Contractualisation of Jobs

a) In line with the diktaks of market capitalism and World Bank/IMF Structural Adjustment Programme, posts in education sector are increasingly not filled up. Under the garb of ‘optimization of resources’, ‘performance appraisal’ and ‘lean structure’; jobs are contractualised under a ‘hire and fire’ policy. Thus, a tight leash is maintained not only on recruitment and tenure but on dissent and academic freedom. The recent attempt to provision lateral entry of people into professorship is another instance of this contractual model. Isn’t it a bit ironical that the state is not ready to recruit and provide employment normally due to a dictated moratorium on recruitment but have plans for providing all kinds of lateral entry in the academia?

b) Pay Structure and Service Conditions
An honest appraisal by all of us will expose the present pay structure for teachers as a shrewd example of ‘carrot and stick’ policy. That the nodal Trade Union bodies have fallen prey to this subterfuge is clear when we realize that there was no platform of struggle that addressed the issues in their totality – most of the discussion considered pay package and service conditions in isolation while forgetting their interlinkages. That the authorities wanted this separation is clearly reflected in the fact that the date of entitlement of advance increments (MPhil/PhD) is 1.9.2008 (date of notification) rather than 1.1.2006.
All most all of us were made to believe that it is a financial bonanza and are now left to face the consequences.
To enumerate,
i) the financial package is conditional to some of the most restrictive and reactionary service conditions for career advancement.
ii) the pay distribution for various categories of teachers are non-proportional – this is a built-in mechanism to divide the teachers into warring camps and to prevent a joint front and it manifested concretely as PB3 vs. PB4, each out-shouting the other than challenging the authorities.
iii) teaching and research are made synonymous with dangerous portents for classroom pedagogy. Also, no encouragement of academic research is given in the pay package but a dangerous, quantifiable model of research output is imposed.
iv) denial of third promotion – by this a compulsory, guaranteed stagnation of almost 20-25 years in service (taking 25-30 as entry age and 65 years as retirement age) is effected.

v) denial of parity with administrative services in non-wage percurial benefits such as CGHS, Housing, etc.

c) NPS – A surrender to market regime

The mandatory New Pension Scheme for teachers appointed 2004 onwards is often drubbed as No Pension Scheme. This has robbed the employees of any guaranteed pensionary benefit and has made them prone to the fluctuations of a volatile market. Moreover, the employer’s contribution is considered as part of their income inviting greater tax liability. A contribution to a non-withdrawable corpus fund is taxed at the present rate while there is no guarantee that the contribution will be there in real economic value (leave alone income generated out of it) at the time of retirement as it is wholly subservient to the market.

We give commitment to stand firm in preventing contractualisation of jobs at all levels of employment. We will also chalk out an action programme in consultation with all the stakeholders to fight for better service conditions, proportional pay structure, rightful recognition of teaching experience, providing academic allowance and institutional facilities and encouragement for research, and rectification of other anomalies.

3. Saffronisation of Syllabus
Growing communal fascism is institutionalized through subtle maneouvers. The secular fabric of the society and learning is eroded with biased overhauling of syllabus and blatant inclusion of fundamentalist academic content. The liberal principles of learning are replaced with saffronised approaches that can viciously polarize the society.

Education is made subservient to compulsions of dominant sectarian ideologies which should be resisted.

The saffronisation of curriculum will be resisted tooth and nail through the appropriate academic and agitational platforms.

DU SPECIFIC CHALLENGES

1. Resistance to Imposition of Semester System

The dictatorial imposition of semester system by the VC is in accordance with the policy of the Government and should not be a surprise to anyone. That policy, like the VC, is blind to the requirements of our University and its major stakeholders – students, teachers and other employees. The VC has done what the masters have asked from him by undemocratically rejecting the overwhelming ‘NO’ from the various Staff Councils and Associations and elected teacher representatives. The situation is a clear affront to the might of the teachers and the need of the hour is agitational path. It is also time for all of us to have a dispassionate look at the functioning of semester system at the PG level and have a serious rethinking, based on appraisal, about its desirability.

We have lost crucial time in charting out organized resistance to the imposition of semester system. We should have gone for this the moment the elected teacher representatives’ voices were silenced by the authoritarian VC. Anymore dilly-dallying by the trade union body will result in permanent irreversible damage like the sabotaging of the federal character of the University through delinking of Colleges in the name of ‘autonomy’. We need to organize ourselves and resist its implementation on three counts:
i) desirability
ii) feasibility
iii) its linkages with a devious educational policy
The third point is crucial when you carefully connect the NKC report, the efforts to implement a national accreditation policy under NAAC and continuing efforts to privatization of educational sector. This will help us to understand the convergence of motive in the seemingly different Yashpal Committee Report and NKC.

We give commitment to provide a large platform of resistance against imposition of semester system through ground level mobilization.

2. Lumpenised Administration

When the VC of the University manipulates the responses he received from the Statutory Staff Councils to make it appear that only ‘some’ have apprehensions about the semester system, when the VC sets the example by ‘passing’ its introduction without discussion and in the face of dissent from elected members in the decision making body, we should understand that what we have at hand is a completely, from top to bottom, lumpenised administration. The Principals of the college, mostly the hand-picked protégés, compete among each other to achieve the benchmark set by the administrative head. Be it the question of ad-hoc appointments, or implementing the decisions of the statutory bodies like Staff Council, providing information under RTI, they violate rules and procedures with impunity and then victimize and steam-roll democratic opposition with the help of the respective Governing Bodies and, at times, the police - false charges and affidavits are filed against dissenters through proxies; teacher representatives and students are beaten up; injunctions are sought against Teachers Associations’ right to protest. It is now time for all of us to realize that this lumpenisation of administration is an integral tactics and vanguard of institutional fascism that simultaneously talks of ‘right to education’ and then reduce public funding for education and allow private parties to operate with profit motive.

We will expedite the framing of charge sheet/preparation of white paper against the VC and other similarly repressive Principals and authorities, and fix their responsibility in the misdeeds. This will further prevent manipulations of the statutory bodies and make the authorities accountable for their actions.

3. Gender Justice and CCC against Sexual Harassment

Ordinance XVD provides an institutional mechanism to prevent workplace sexual harassment in DU through CCC/UCC/ACC et al. But the recent cases in the Political Science and Hindi Department and other cases in various Colleges have shown that there is a dangerous bureaucratization of the struggle for gender justice. We have instances where procedures are violated, redressal measures are denied to the complainant/defendant and CCC/UCC/ACC recommendations are set aside/rejected by GB/ECs on their own. Many a time, the Committee is formed only when there is a complaint. All this is deeply disheartening and should indicate the need to recover a more cogent and mobilization-based approach to strengthen the cause of gender justice.

We will not remain mute spectators when Ordinance XVD provisions and procedures are violated and will go on immediate mobilization of support to make the people and authorities accountable to the cause of gender justice.

4. SC/ST/OBC/PH Reservation & Roster

The implementation of the correct roster for the various categories has become all the more important with increase in workload consequent to the implementation of 54% reservation for OBC students. Liaison officers at the College level and the University need to work together to clear the backlog and to ensure correct category appointments even in ad-hoc vacancies. The authorities have often delayed the implementation of the roster in appointments and have done considerable damage to the claimants. There is lack of transparency and clarity in the choice of roster – whether it is wise to accept DU directive of 13 point roster for departments with strength less than 13 and 100 point roster in department with higher strength or to go for UGC directive to treat College and University as units and adopt 200 point roster in appointments. In the case of PH category, the roster to be followed is the 100 point one as laid down in the Persons With Disability Act

We believe that the 200 point roster is a better alternative as the adoption of the other systems will lose at least one thousand jobs in DU for the category in the long run. We will work to protect the right of the category candidates as it is a way to empower the disadvantaged. We will also ensure the appointment of Liaison Officer from the PH category for maintaining and implementing the 100 point roster strictly.

5. Disability Politics

There is a vital need to understand the nature of disability politics and its overall potential to democratize and energize political space. Virtually from the margins of the society, from the wilderness of our culture, a new form of inclusive politics has emerged. With ground level activism and constitutional remedies, the activists have considerably altered the situation but we need concrete efforts to empower the politics behind this articulation.
Instead, it is often given a token recognition that defeats the possibility of progressive consolidation around issues of various ‘disabilities’.
The Tenth Plan had earmarked a large corpus of funds to provide accessibility to the physically challenged by making the resources and buildings disabled-friendly. Most of the Colleges and the University did not spend much on this regard. For instance, University of Delhi instead spent a lot to renovate the campus buildings under heritage renovation and created completely unfriendly spaces for the PH community. Had there been a participation of the community in the decision making, this kind of exclusions would not have happened. Now, the Equal Opportunity Cell of the University, under a senior Professor and a Reader, is again making the same mistakes by not ensuring the participation of direct stakeholders in matters of policy formulation. Accessibility measures are now used as a pretext to award more and more contracts to the builder lobby rather than creating a disabled-friendly atmosphere. Hence it becomes imperative to simultaneously tackle the twin tasks of accessibility and empowerment.

We will work together with the primary beneficiaries to effect real-time accessibility to documents, resources and physical space leading to empowerment of people.

6. AD-HOCism

Three times or more every year, the sad plight of the ad-hoc teacher is reenacted in educational institutions. There is palpable apprehension and anxiety on the face of every ad-hoc teacher about the renewal of tenure. The stiff-faced authority will then throw a new interpretation of the most recent ludicrous circular from the higher-ups to create a possibility of non-renewal. After some hours, following much wrangling, the teachers are asked to come back next day and rejoin. This insulting charade should not be treated as a ‘necessary evil’ or a DU-specific happening but clear illustrations of the neoliberal need to create a ‘vast reserve’ of labour.

Without taking note of concrete conditions like the growing demand for education and rise in number of students, an artificial, arbitrary restriction against employment is imposed. The ad-hoc teachers have to suffer break in services, are denied leave and vacation salary; but they continue in the same position for years even when they are employed against substantive vacancies. They are always at the mercy of the authorities and advised to be pliant and submissive even by teachers’ organizations. The constant fiddling with the eligibility criteria (NET/MPhil/PhD) by the UGC has worsened the situation of the teachers and made them more vulnerable.

We reject the DU Guidelines on Ad hoc appointments issued in 2007 as they are faulty and discriminatory on many counts. The recent developments are alarming and we will press for the adoption of a DUTA prepared manual that addresses the inequities and provides a level playing field for all concerned and, more importantly, end the era of ad-hocism.

7. Provident Fund

There is a serious anomaly in the handling of PF. Ours is not EPF/GPF. Most of the Colleges and the University of Delhi are listed as separate entities in the 1925 PF Act. This act along with DU Ordinance for College PF does not allow for any cap on the annual interest on investment. This has to be decided on the basis of actual return and the current requirement of disbursal i.e. the interest could be more than 8% or less than that and it can be decided by the duly constituted statutory PF Committee at the College/University. Generally, for the last few years, citing a self-contradictory MHRD letter, the University/College GBs restrict the upper limit of interest to 8%. This is not always adhered by all i.e. some colleges have distributed more than 8% as interest for the earnings on investment. This will, in effect, deprive teachers of lakhs of rupees over the years. Some Colleges have rejected the proposal of their PF Committees even when recommendations for more than 8% were formally given to maintain 8% cap. There are DUTA documents and sporadic struggles on this but the issue is still unclenched. Shockingly, it is pointed out that PF Committees with duly elected representatives from the PF subscribers are not even constituted in some places including the University.

We need to urgently educate the University community about the dangers of surrendering their financial rights and address this anomaly which harms the rights of the first stake holder i.e. the investor/employee (teacher or non-teaching staff) and then clinch the issue in favour of interest rate based on actual earning.

8. ARREARS

The unjustifiable delay in payments of arrears to permanent/ad-hoc/temporary teachers and superannuated colleagues has piled on financial misery on all of us. Many Colleges have excluded the ad-hoc teachers who have moved out of the institution from even the initial disbursement of arrears.

We will confront the authority against the laxity in payment of arrears and press for immediate release of all outstanding dues of all teachers within a strict time-frame.

DUTA’S MANDATE

DUTA’s mandate is to act as a responsible trade union body to protect the interest of the teachers and the education sector which also includes students and the nonteaching staff. Apart from this there is the added responsibility towards general issues that affect the people and society. Over the time, DUTA is facing a shrinking space for itself in the society because of two major internal flaws
1) the inability to rise above certain pet issues and offer a more comprehensive platform for the teacher-learner-activist. With some level of job protection and salary benefits enjoyed by all of us, the custodians and the common teacher restrict themselves to a limited role of passivity as the world is rapidly changing around us
2) the complete saturation of trade union space by some big groups or a few individuals who are increasingly becoming indistinguishable from each other. The blurring of differences among major groups should not be mistaken for any constructive unity. They are very much similar in playing out appointment politics through out the year and in attempting casteist and regionalist consolidations during the election time. The depoliticisation of the teaching class through the extreme focus on small benefits will ultimately strengthen the establishment. This leads us into a false sense mobilization and collective strength, and trade union work becomes coterie-based, cabalistic syndicalism.

We resolve to uncompromisingly fight against these kinds of regressive domineering tendencies of big groups and organize the common teacher into a teacher-learner-activist. This will give voice to some of the submerged concerns and issues and will effectively mean participatory restructuring of DUTA while maintaining the federal character of the nodal union and its satellite constituents. DUTA, in our opinion, should also strive to bring in accountability at all levels in education – most of all, among themselves, in the academia, in the teaching community - that can inspire and provide impetus to a vibrant, militant and activist teachers’ movement. We will also aim to bring back political trade unionism, recognize heterogeneity and at the same time attempt to rise above sectarian and parochial concerns to form broad based alliances with the struggles waged outside the University for an egalitarian world.

SACHIN N’S CANDIDATURE FOR DUTA EXECUTIVE

With this stated position and programme of action, we would like to put forward the candidature of Sachin N, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Dyal Singh College from an independent platform. He’s been an untiring trade union activist who has led various struggles in the college and outside. He’s been the unanimously elected President of the Teachers Association in the recent past. As Convener of the Joint Action Committee of the Morning & Evening teachers, students and non-teaching staff, he was in the forefront of the struggle against the unilateral takeover of College land by DMRC which produced tangible results in the form of written assurance for contiguous equivalent land from Ministry of Urban Development. He has also consistently raised the PF issue and other matters mentioned above in DUTA platforms against the authorities and for this he was targeted by the police at the behest of the authorities. With his commitment and political understanding he will be able to work for the agenda that could be a collective agenda for all of us.

Supported by: Anshuman Singh, Arjumand Ara, C. Sadasiva, Divya Pradhan, Konika Kwatra, Kumar Sanjay Singh, Laxmi, Nikhil Jain, P R Meena, Pema Yolmo, Rakesh Ranjan, Shyista A Khan, Sunil Mandiwal, Viraj Kafle and others.

cul-de-sach

Blog Archive

About Me

Saturday, October 17, 2009

blogging an election pamphlet

AN AGENDA FOR A TEACHER-LEARNER-ACTIVIST

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Ode to Your Feet

Sunday, April 26, 2009

THREE CANTOS ON DEATHS IN DYAL SINGH

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The Journey itself is Home

Sunday, June 29, 2008

cul-de-sach