Teachers poised to reclaim DUTA in 2021

The coming Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) elections are going to be very crucial. Historically, DUTA had come into reckoning after it got the second promotion of readership for the college teachers in eighties as a result of a long strike that continued for more than 80 days. This success also helped University teachers in getting promoted to the post of Professors on a large scale. Some 'conservative educationists' used to run these promoted Professors down by branding them as DUTA Professors. But DUTA has been claiming its glory since then as they could successfully facilitate indiscriminating promotions on a large scale, realized by both the University and College teachers. DUTA became known in the entire country on posting this particular achievement. DUTA activists drew recognition when they ensured that promotions were not denied to almost anyone. Even today, DUTA draws its strength from this anecdotal success story. In the last more than two decades however, DUTA movement could not repeat even a fraction of such a success.

Although DUTA has no such success story since then, it did try to repeat its glorious performance during the struggles against semesterization that ended in failure and FYUPization (Four Year Undergraduate Program) that culminated in a delayed success but this success was far from being as impressive. DUTA’s activism continued in the last two decades but the successes more often than not, used to be on a limited scale. Recently, to save itself from becoming irrelevant, DUTA have indulged into some issues that rarely bothered teachers of DU on a large scale and were more political in nature and substance. DUTA has also been playing around with priorities of issues for reasons driven more by politics than welfare of teachers. Hesitance in picking up the issues of continuing apathy of ad-hoc teachers and then against the insensitive attitude of Delhi Government in granting funds for salaries in their colleges has opened the eyes of the entire teaching community. When teachers were passing through the darkest phase of no promotions, no appointments and no salaries, DUTA kept itself increasingly engaged in other issues that demanded lesser attention than these. The size of such mistaken priorities grew in abundance especially since 2014. Intolerance towards the government that came at the center in 2014, never made DUTA believe in the UGC regulations 2018. DUTA kept on looking for only negatives of the document with a sense of disbelief and mistrust, although there were very few for their discomfort.

Come 2021, and the scenario changed for good this year. The success story of promotions witnessed by the teachers in the era of eighties has got repeated in 2021. In its earlier version, teachers got promoted to the post of Readers, and this time they got promoted to the posts of Associate Professors and Professors in a similar way. That DUTA is finding it difficult to claim this achievement, lies in the fact that they never let the teachers believe in the positive aspects of the UGC Regulations. NDTF (National Democratic Teachers Front), a right wing teachers organization, displayed exemplary confidence in the UGC Regulations 2018 and kept on projecting its unbelievable provisions as realizable when others claimed them to be unrealistic and unrealizable. This confidence of NDTF and its current presidential candidate Prof. A. K. Bhagi that led this dream come true has made them emerge as the real hero in this entire dream-like sequence that is running for almost a year till now. There may have been some failures, but the successes are so enormous that failures have been rendered as aberrations rather than rule. And this has changed the scenario. This has generated a lot of hope and positivity in the teaching community. With NDTF claiming to support ‘regularization’ of working adhoc teachers after running the success show on promotion story, their promises have ignited many hopes to realistic levels. Teachers seems to be in a clear mood to take a plunge, to give their hope a chance and thereby to reclaim the old glory of DUTA. Writing is on the wall and after more than two decades of absence, time is destined to give NDTF its well-deserved and well-earned chance to show its mettle and resolve in fulfilling their promises and hopes. 

समायोजन का लक्ष्य - राजनीतिक लड़ाई से नहीं, कानूनी रास्ते से ही हासिल करना संभव

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राजनैतिक जोड़ तोड़ और सत्याग्रही आंदोलनों के रास्ते से हमें 5-6 दिसंबर को एच आर डी (HRD) का जो पत्र मिल पाया वो भी हम विश्वविद्यालय में पूरी तरह से लागू करा पाने में अभी तक असमर्थ रहे हैं। अगर हम एडहॉक नियुक्तियों का इतिहास देखें तो पाएंगे कि वैसे तो ऐसी नियुक्तियां चार पांच दशकों से चल रही हैं मगर परेशानी तब से बढ़ी जब 2007-8 से स्थाई नियुक्तियां लगभग रुक सी गयीं। और फिर 2007-8 से लेकर 2014-15 तक दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय में हर वर्ष एक एडहॉक शिक्षक को हटाकर उसी के स्थान पर दूसरे को लगाने का अनियमित कारोबार एडहॉक शिक्षकों को प्रताड़ित करने के मकसद से खुले आम चला। तत्कालीन केंद्रीय मंत्री स्मृति ईरानी की पहल पर FYUP वापसी के दौरान यु जी सी के द्वारा लिखे गए जुलाई 2014 के ऐतिहासिक पत्र के बाद से कम से कम ये घृणित सिलसिला बहुत बड़े स्तर पर विश्वविद्यालय में रुका, जिसमे यह कहा गया था कि सभी एडहॉक शिक्षकों को नए सत्र में अपने पुराने पदों पर नियुक्ति दिया जाय। इसी कारण से पांच वर्ष से या उससे अधिक समय से काम कर रहे एडहॉक शिक्षकों की संख्या आज 2000 से कुछ ज़्यादा अवश्य होगी।

जो लोग समायोजन को क़ानूनी तौर से असंभव मानते हैं उन्हें ऐसा इसलिए लगता है क्योंकि एडहॉक शिक्षकों के लिए जो चयन समिति गठित की जाती है वो यु जी सी के रेगुलेशंस के आधार पर नियमित नहीं माना जा सकता। ऐसे लोगों के विचार में,  क्योंकि स्थाई शिक्षकों की नियुक्तियों की चयन समितियां इन चयन समितियों से भिन्न होती हैं इसलिए एडहॉक शिक्षकों का समायोजन बगैर स्थाई नियुक्तियों की चयन समितियों के सामने साक्षात्कार दिए हुए करने की इजाज़त कानून कभी नहीं देगा। हालांकि इस बात से इंकार नहीं किया जा सकता कि दोनों तरह की नियुक्तियों के लिए चयन समितियां एक जैसी नहीं होती, लेकिन ये कहना कि एडहॉक शिक्षकों की चयन समितियां नियमित ही नहीं होती है, ना तो ठीक है और ना ही ऐसा कहकर न्यायालय के आगे विश्वविद्यालय खुद ही अपनी मुसीबत बुलाएगा। न्यायालय में ऐसी दलीलें काम नहीं आएँगी क्योंकि सबको पता है कि आज विश्वविद्यालय में आधे से ज़्यादा शिक्षकों की नियुक्तियां इसी पद्धति से हो चुकी है और विश्वविद्यालय प्रशासन भी इस प्रक्रिया में भाग लेता रहा है। ये कहना कि ये चयन समितियां सिर्फ चार महीनों की नियुक्तियों के लिए थीं - भी विश्वविद्यालय के खिलाफ ही जाएगा क्योंकि ऐसी पद्धति से की गई नियुक्तियां जब इतने वर्षों तक चल रहा था तो उन्होंने ना सिर्फ कोई कार्यवाई नहीं की बल्कि एडहॉक पैनल बना बना कर उसमे सहयोग ही किया। हमारी दलील के पक्ष में उच्च और सर्वोच्च न्यायालयों ने कई बार निर्णय दिए हैं, क्यूंकि न्यायालय तकनीकी कारणों की आड़ में अन्याय करने वालों का पक्ष नहीं ले सकती। नीचे दिए गए दो लिंकों पर न्यायालयों के निर्णयों को पढ़कर हम आश्वस्त भी हो सकते हैं।

Karnataka State Private College ... vs State Of Karnataka And Ors on 29 January, 1992
Equivalent citations: 1992 AIR 677, 1992 SCR (1) 397 (Link https://indiankanoon.org/doc/340640/ )
Jag Lal And Ors. vs Director, Horticulture, U.P. ... on 21 May, 2003
Equivalent citations: (2003) 3 UPLBEC 2528  (Link https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1180932/ )

रजनी अब्बी बनाम दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय के मुक़दमे के 2016 दिसंबर को दिए गए निर्णय में दिल्ली के उच्च न्यायालय ने विश्वविद्यालय को यह कहा था कि वो जुलाई 2017 तक सारे रिक्त पदों के साथ साथ उन पदों पर भी नियुक्तियां कर लें जहां एडहॉक शिक्षक कार्यरत हैं। इतना ही नहीं उस निर्णय में यह भी कहा गया था कि अगर विश्वविद्यालय को इस काम को पूरा करने में कोई दिक्कत नजर आए तो वो न्यायालय से समय रहते ही इस समय सीमा को बढ़ाने की गुहार लगा सकती है।

"point 17. It was agreed by the Committee that it would be appropriate to incorporate in the Minutes of Meeting / its report the above mentioned time-line of May 2017 for completion of the selection process for approximately 600 posts belonging to the University and for approximately 3500 posts in the affiliated colleges, by May 2017 and July 2017 respectively. It was also agreed that if there comes any impediment in this process, the concern of the DU and/or the concerned college affiliated with the University, shall be brought before the Hon’ble Delhi High Court for praying for enlargement of time for completion of selection process regarding any particular post." ( Link - http://delhihighcourt.nic.in/writereaddata/orderSan_Pdf/jrm/2016/253804_2016.pdf )

 

मेरी समझ से विश्वविद्यालय ने इस निर्णय की साफ तौर पर अनदेखी और अवहेलना करके हमारे समायोजन की मांग को अनजाने में ही एक बहुत बड़ा कानूनी हथियार दे दिया है। वैसे मार्च 2018 में रोस्टर के कारणों से यू जी सी के द्वारा नियुक्तियों पर रोक लगी जरूर थी मगर वो भी मार्च 2019 को हटा दी गई थी। इस बात को भी अब एक वर्ष से कहीं ज़्यादा हो गया। यू जी सी के द्वारा मार्च 2019 से चलाए गए समयबद्ध तरीके से नियुक्ति के कार्यक्रम में जहां बाकी सभी केंद्रीय विश्वविद्यालयों ने बड़े स्तरों पर नियुक्तियां की भी हैं, वहीं दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय में अभी तक एक भी नियुक्ति नहीं हुई।

हां, लेकिन एक बात हमें मानना होगा की न्यायलय में हम उन एडहॉक शिक्षकों के समायोजन के पक्ष में कोई ठोस दलील नहीं दे पाएंगे जो कल ही अपने पदों पर नियुक्त हुए हैं। मुझे लगता है कि हमें जुलाई 2017 के दिल्ली उच्च न्यायालय के निर्णय को महत्व देकर एक कानूनी लड़ाई लड़ने की तैयारी करनी चाहिए जिसमें उन सभी एडहॉक शिक्षकों के समायोजन के लिए मांग की जाए जो जुलाई 2017 या उससे भी पहले से कार्यरत हैं। इस तारीख का एक कानूनी महत्व है जिसे कोई न्यायालय नज़रअंदाज़ नहीं कर पायेगा।

मेरे अपने अनुमान से जुलाई 2017 से लगातार कार्यरत एडहॉक शिक्षकों की संख्या 3000 के लगभग होगी जिन्हें समायोजन की प्रक्रिया से स्थाई बनाने का क़ानूनी रास्ता सफलता की आशा के साथ तय करने की उम्मीद की जा सकती है। बाकी के 2-3000 पदों पर साक्षात्कार की सामान्य पद्धति से नियुक्तियां जोरों से शुरू करने की मांग भी अगर साथ में की जाए तो हमारे मुक़दमे को एक सही दिशा मिल सकती है।

मगर ये कानूनी लड़ाई जीतने के लिए हमें अपनी पूरी शक्ति लगानी पड़ेगी। अगर ऐसे शिक्षकों का एक ग्रुप बनाकर सभी 3000 शिक्षक आर्थिक सहयोग करें तो हरेक के 1000 रुपयों से ही एक ही बार में तीस लाख का ऐसा फण्ड बन जायेगा जो देश के बड़े से बड़े वकील को इसका पक्ष लेने के लिए खड़ा करने में उपयोग में लाया जा सकेगा। न्यायालय में हमारा पक्ष कौन रख रहा है, इस बात का कितना महत्व है यह हम सब जानते हैं। इस प्रयत्न से कुछ ही महीने में हम कानून के रास्ते से शायद वो हासिल कर पाएंगे जो हम इतने वर्षों की राजनैतिक जोड़ तोड़ और सत्याग्रही आंदोलनों के द्वारा हासिल नहीं कर पाए।

 

Email: r.kr.pandey@gmail.com 

Contact: 8920529342, 9811170889

Unresolved issues and Inappropriate Celebration

I am amazed at the celebration mode of some DUTA leaders on the news of change in ministry. This news was celebrated as if DUTA has been able to resolve any of the major issues that are concerning and bothering the teachers in general. It is more than clear now that ‘their’ disproportionate sense of achievement would get 'completed' only with the exit of NDA government. The scale and extent of celebration only proved what some of us have often been reiterating in our assessment that DUTA has been derailed from its primary focus. It is lately being used more as a platform for venting out their politically motivated desire and outbursts of opposing and defaming the government at the Centre.

The hard reality is that the present government was greeted by a list of long pending chronic problems that were started and then left unresolved by the UPA government. The problems of unmanageable number of adhoc teachers and the un-implementable nature of API-PBAS scheme both were inherited by this government from the earlier regime.

Yes, the MHRD failed to address these issues effectively and this could be one of the factors that could have led to the change in the ministry. However, it would dishonesty if the efforts made by the MHRD in getting these long-pending problems resolved, are not acknowledged. Although it is true that all the efforts in terms of 3rd, 4th amendments and further clarifications carried out to address the issue were quick like never before but in the final analysis those were proved only to aggravate the problems due to factors that the new minister will face as a challenge. I hope the new minister would be able to take control of the forces working within the system against the government.

Interestingly, even groups active under DUTA can not absolve of from their contribution in getting these two problems to this alarming stage. While AADityans can hardly save themselves from the blame of directly supporting the regimes that created this huge pool of adhoc and un-promoted teachers, DTF also can not wash their hands off from the fact that they did not launch any effective attack despite having DUTA’s functioning under their major control. NDTF, on the other hand, have no such history of helping factors that led towards building up of these problems.

I am a proud NDTF activist who can claim that NDTF, after the present government came into power, actually played a significant role in DUTA to ensure continuation of adhoc teachers in the last few semesters besides getting the permanent appointments started. And after the change of ministry, we will keep our efforts going with a greater hope of resolution of all our problems to the satisfaction of teachers.

Let us carry out the Change

It is never wise to reject a system without reasons. We had arguments against the semester system to arrive at a unanimous decision of opposing the same. We had reasoned out the absurdities in the FYUP. Our stands in these cases were never blind and were always based on their detailed analysis. We therefore, must spare ourselves from becoming slaves of our final decisions. Our opposition for FYUP or the CBCS were not because of their nomenclature but because of the objectives behind them. Now, an effort is being made to pull us all into the trap of opposing every change in the name of our well-meaning decisions of opposing these formulations. It often reminds me of the laughable stand of the university wherein they have resorted to notify all kinds of teachers' strikes as illegal not because of the issues at hand but by citing a court order that is arguably quoted completely 'out of context'. Let us remind ourselves that even our existing migration schemes are nothing but our own method of transferring credits from one college to the other. We were also never opposed to another credit transfer scheme wherein we were absolutely comfortable in transferring our Honours students to the respective program courses when they used to get less than a threshold marks. Whereas the DTF has a history of taking an ideological stand irrespective of the stand of DUTA, recently the DU authorities helped them in creating a space and environment wherein all of us were pushed to appear on their side. What helped them was the idiocy with which FYUP was formulated and implemented as these did not confine to the format alone but spilled over even to the contents and the syllabus. Whereas we all can feel the relevance and usefulness of even the foundation courses that have been designed in other institutes such as IISc (Bangalore), in DU they were reduced to jokes because of their compulsory nature, the unreasonable weightage attached with these courses, the standard of the contents and above all the state of unpreparedness with which these were launched. The DU authorities were further exposed defenceless as all these experiments were being carried out in an isolated manner ONLY in this university – thereby defeating the very purpose for which it was championing. The fact that these changes were being implemented without affecting the desired changes in the approach of school-teaching further established beyond doubts that the experiments were badly designed, were ill-thought and hurriedly approached.

Even if we decide to leave all the above arguments aside, does it not make sense in having broad centralized guideline to help different universities to come some kind of an even-level wherein assessment of students from different universities would not remain as difficult as it is now. Just as we have a CBSE syllabus to guide all other boards to keep up with the pace, relevance and some sense of uniformity, is it not time to discuss the same in the area of higher education too? Just as we all were unanimous in opposing the experiments that were carried out in our university it is also a fact that we all are not happy with state of education in this country.

Let us not run away from discussions as there is no other known way to arrive at a consensus. CBCS or a modified FYUP – what would ensure a better performance of any new system of education is our involvement and preparedness that will eventually help us in developing the necessary confidence and conviction – to make any new system deliver.

DUTA movement : Is there a way ahead ?

Present State of affairs

At present the DUTA (Delhi University Teachers' Association) movement is clearly in the most challenging state ever. As the era of heroes has gone, we have progressively witnessed our heroes becoming more and more human whereas oppressors have become more and more inhuman. I can myself genuinely point out many lapses of the DUTA leaderships that have been instrumental in throwing us into this state of despair. Here, I would consciously avoid blaming someone for the growing indifference among teachers towards DUTA and pat myself for pinning down the other group for the failure of the movement. Can we deny the fact that it is always impossible to fight an insensitive administration with our age-old, well-established and democratically acceptable methods. The use of stings with electronic devices that initially helped common people to collect evidences to help them in raising voices against the incidences of oppressions are now being utilized by the administration to browbeat voices of discontent. All DUTA meetings/dharnas/speaches are invariably captured on camera these days to put it at our disadvantage. The administration has already started liberal use of these devices to establish our presence and absence in such DUTA gatherings and they have also resorted to threatening the teachers of using other attendance recording devices (biometric) to enforce their repressive designs. To add to our wounds there are some of us who want us to realize that we can survive only at the mercy of those who are close to the administration. The claim by some group of teachers that they would not have “allowed” a salary cut or would have successfully stopped other such regressive measures by the administration only reinforces the fear among common teachers. After facing a few salary cuts, common teachers now know that they are not only helpless but not even in a position to bargain. It is easier to blame a group for our collective failure but we all know from deep inside our hearts that a road ahead will be visible only when we collectively decide to wake up now.

Exploring a way

It would be better for us if we can realize that the days are gone when we could make the authority feel our collective pressure. In fact one of the prerequisites to make them feel our pressure is that the administration should be sensitive enough to respond to pressures. All democratically acceptable measures of movements and agitations are bound to fail as soon as an administration decides to become completely insensitive. The strength is always collective but what goes into our clear disadvantage is that in this new technologically advanced world the administration can always find a way to single you out. Now even mob has a face on a camera. Besides this, with the increase in salaries and perks as well as the ever growing EMI culture, the stakes have become so high that these factors are actually helping the administration in singling out each one of us.

Is there a way out or we will have to leave everything to our destiny? I can see a ray of light. The AAP experiment, irrespective of our agreement on its ultimate success or failure, has taught us some very precious lessons. The AAP success-story in Delhi was surprisingly without their indulgence into any kind of violence or their participation in any visible law-breaking movement. On the other hand, the survival of individuals like Subramaniam Swamy in the political horizon of India can also provide us with a clue to move ahead.

Possible strategy

The lesson is clear and loud - we will have to depend on the social media and the legal system to deliver in favour of teachers. Can't we think of creating a legal cell to assist teachers in achieving our goals but entirely in a legally acceptable manner? 8000 strong strength of teachers can contribute more than 1 crore a month (average of Rs. 1200 per teacher or just 2% of our salaries) and that can be used to fight for our rights. This amount of money would be good enough to engage a battery of legal advisers to help us out with their invaluable advises, they can also be used to serve legal notices and finally to help us in filing a petition and fighting a case in a court. The “Social Media” can further help DUTA in identifying the cases that should be taken up by its legal cell. Of course, for this, an educated group like us teachers can be expected to adopt the social media in a big way. Any issue would then be decided in a lesser time with even wider consultation than now and it can come with unquestionable reliability. After all even during the British colonial rule we were never averse to take up a legal route and we have now seen how Kirori Mal teachers succeeded in the CPF/GPF case that DUTA could never clinched through the traditional pressure tactics spanning over many leaderships over more than a decade. I recall that we were muted when at the time of semesterisation the court itself had asked as as to why we did not move the court when so many rules were being blatantly violated for imposing semesterisation. We could have certainly won a case against our salary cut for taking a casual leave.