During our semester struggle we
witnessed massive turn outs of teachers in the DUTA programs and activities. All
shades of teachers participated in the united struggle against the proposed
system and its contradictions. But, what did we get in response to our activism?
Even a supposedly ‘weak’ UPA government functioning at the mercy of left and
their likes did not pay any heed to our concerns. The government turned deaf
and dumb. The University authorities and the government started acting tougher.
Even principals were targeted in order to teach teachers threat-lessons. A
series of threatening letters were issued by the registrar of the university.
And those threats were not in air as many teachers were served explanation
calls. Authorities started spreading terror by issuing show cause notices to
the agitating or otherwise teachers, individually. And to add to this, many of
the activists even suffered wage cut for a few days. Later, buoyed at the
absence of effective opposition to these repressive measures, the government
and the university completely ignored teachers’ apathy when they decided to
steamroll FYUP in DU. Teachers’ participation became thinner and thinner and
reached the stage of mere tokenism.
During the ongoing united
struggle of teachers however, the circumstances and events are all different.
From the day one, a visible movement in the government was noticed to address our major concerns on Workload and API scores. Although the present government has far more
stability in terms of the numbers, assurances started pouring soon after a
combined struggle was launched by the teachers. Promises were being made
addressing our real concerns. The government undoubtedly appeared responsive
this time. What could be the difference? A simple analysis would convince you
that this time not only the feedback mechanism was working better but even the
opinions received by the government from the feedback sources were respected by them.
Don’t even dare to conclude that teachers could have achieved this response without our united show of strength. We must not make the blunder of feeling complacent about the developments. Instead, I want this analysis to give us the hope, energy and strength this time (that was entirely missing during our earlier struggles) to fight this battle and conclude it on a victorious note. There is a clear chance that our struggle will end on a satisfactory note for the first time after more than a decade of our combined sufferings. We continued to suffer denial of promotional avenues during the entire sixth pay period, we were snatched off the opportunity for holding selection committees for permanent appointments and to top them all even our pension schemes were turned into unnecessary controversies. We were forced to accept the original draconian UGC notification and its two successive amendments earlier. But this time, buoyed by the positive responses from the right quarters, we could think of demanding withdrawal of not merely the third amendment but the original notification itself that can hopefully pave the way to help all sixth pay beneficiaries to get the benefit of promotion scheme that existed during the popular fifth pay scales. However, the analysis will not be complete if I will fail to point out that during our earlier struggles what probably was disheartening to notice was that those who were supposed to convey our concerns to the government were either seen as helpless bunch of teachers or were seen coming out in blatant support of ‘their’ government. Undoubtedly, teachers are visibly hopeful this time only because besides the honest unity in our united struggle even these factors seem to be working in our favour this time.
Let us fight together as always, but let us fight with real hope of victory this time. Because the only way that we can fail now is that if our leadership fails to remain honest and committed to the welfare of the teachers and succumb to their otherwise compelling urge to indulge into unnecessary and divisive political games.
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