Let us put an end on further exploitation of Adhoc Teachers

It is difficult to remain unmoved and disconnected at the apathy that our adhoc teachers have been facing for the last decade or so. They were ‘used’ to bring about Semesterization in the university; they were later ‘misused’ to steamroll FYUP over here and were ‘abused’ and ‘forced’ to come out in support of FYUP when it was being rolled back; and finally they were completely ‘ignored’ at the time of introducing CBCS. But this is only one side of the story. The darker side of this story is that they were being abused and exploited not only by the immediate college and university authorities but even by those leaders who were supposed to protect them from their misery and agony. Only after the Centre saw the popular Modi government coming into power, some appointments could take place, although the numbers are far from reporting to any satisfactory level. Now it is widely acceptable that there were enough reasons for the then government and their allies to keep these teachers as adhoc teachers just to fulfill their conspiratorially desires and designs.

The recent UGC notification, in a single stroke, quite shockingly has swept the entire floor under their feet. For these ‘technically’ adhoc but arguably more hardworking and sincere teachers, the draconian UGC notification came as more than any shock; it was more than disturbing; much more heartless, unbelievingly mindless and absolutely ruthless. It was shocking too as the government that can easily take credit for getting the permanent appointments started after almost a decade and was instrumental in issuing directives after directives to the universities to fill up all their vacancies sooner than possible time was seen as pushing them off the hook into a deep valley. Till now the adhoc teachers were always somehow lured/forced into avoiding siding with DUTA’s call, but that was not to be true this time. The erroneous workload calculations as given in the draconian UGC gazette notification have left them with no choice but to join DUTA’s call. Unlike earlier DUTA’s calls, adhoc teachers joined us this time and as a consequence we could boycott the evaluation work completely. With the 4500 strong adhoc teachers joining us having no choice, the participation of teachers in the GBM was seen as unprecedented.  Riding on the wave of the panicked adhoc teachers the spontaneous show on the street also recorded a huge turnout of teachers when DUTA gave a call this time. The primary reason for this resounding success of DUTA’s call was the scale at which our adhoc teachers participated in these events as it was clear that with this notification, they were left with nothing more to lose.

But I can sense some insensitive leaders trying again to cook their food on the activism of these young teachers. I am afraid as they might like to keep their cooking pans on the burning emotions of these adhoc teachers to find strength in order to fight their narrow political battles. A section of teachers has already started mixing this problem with other issues that happened in Hyderabad, IIFA, JNU or in Ram Lal Anand college. Some others have started finding fire in the cold smoke that was left after the present government decisively burnt their dynastical aspirations in the last elections. These leaders are probably suffering from selected amnesia as they have failed to admit that the root cause of all these problems have been inherited by the present NDA government and are not their own creation. Conspiring to build up a movement against the central government by keeping the ‘fear’ alive among our young friends would be a complete dishonesty on our part. Let us not push our adhoc teachers again into another blind well after they came out of the one in which they were compelled to stay for a good 7-8 years.

Let us put the issue of Permanent Appointments on the highest priority.  We must not compromise on the issue of workload estimates and procedures. We, who are riding on the wave of an unprecedented spurge in the DUTA activism, must utilize this mandate to completely do away with this politics of exploitation against these teachers. Since the MHRD has been more than clear in her message that the existing workload will not be disturbed at all costs, let us engage her in a meaningful dialogue to stop this politics of exploitation in Delhi University. Instead of deriving strength from the fear of these teachers to build up a movement against the government let us put an end to their exploitation as they have no one but to look at DUTA for this. Yes, API-PBAS is promoting negativity, spurious research and fake publications and we must fight to get a scientific, acceptable and fresh way of promoting hardwork, sincerity and excellence among teachers – but not at the cost of prolonging the apathy of adhoc teachers.

Intolerance is for Real

Their fears are indeed real. They are not lying for sure. But sadly, it is all nothing but their hallucination and that is arguably their self creation. For no fault of theirs, they have been made to believe since independence that RSS is out and out an extremist organization with a single mission of driving minorities out of India. The secular brigade led by the left-liberal ‘extra-nationals’ have worked over-excessively all through to somehow construct a perception that has no real foundation, strangely. Just notice the recent comparison that an eminent secular made between ISIS and RSS. The ISIS with only about 50000 members has kept the entire militarily-developed west on their toes with their mindless showcasing of terror incidents. But it goes only to the credit of our skewed-seculars who can still believe that an organization with 50 lac members having its presence at 50000 places as Shakha units in this country can also be as irrational as the ISIS. Surprisingly, they fail to notice the glaring contrast between the two. Only if someone in his senses would extrapolate the situation assuming the presence of 50 lac alleged ‘Hindu ISIS’ in India, even a counter argument would lose its worth. It is not difficult to recall their desperation during the built-up before the last Loksabha election. I remember several of these making chest-beating appeals to the voters not to support BJP. They were apparently more than convinced that their hate-campaign that they had carried out for the past more than half a decade would never allow an RSS supported BJP to come to the power. They thought that they have been successfully able to convince the peace-loving and inherently secular majority of India to identify RSS with the communal tag.

We must now realize that this left-liberal extra-national brigade did not want the BJP to come to the power not because they feared a regime of intolerance towards minorities but – they actually feared even worse. They feared that with this government at the centre, their more than half a century propaganda for branding RSS as a rabid communal organization would get thoroughly exposed. The source of their strength to keep on maligning RSS came only from a well-executed mis-campaign. They were losing their sleep on the thought of the voters accepting BJP finally as a truly-secular party. All hell broke for them when the inevitable happened. Modi became the PM. All fears that they had been spreading to the voters were suddenly put to test. The propagandists had no option left but to create a scenario to prove that whatever they had been warning us for was never hypothetical or imaginary. They went overboard by picking up each single case that had a potential to be blown out of proportion. They started filtering the news with their skewed-magnifying lenses. Initially all negative news on the churches were reported with only single flavor. The investigation results unfortunately failed their campaign completely. They looked for another spate of incidents and finally they got one – the barbaric lynching of a human being. They only wanted a single streak to swim the tide – and they got that. Even though the immediate responsibility was of another ‘secular’ government, ‘seciulars’ did not have the luxury to care for this contradiction. They could have hardly afforded to miss this glimmer-opportunity. They kept on pushing the ventilator of award-returning ‘oxygen’ to keep the issue fat and alive. A scientific analysis based on the available statistical-data would refuse to hint at any conclusion that can justify this ‘intolerance-hype’ bult-up, but when did they bother themselves to engage in an honest discussion on such serious issues. They have a habit of using situations, accidents and emotions as tools to fool and bluff us.

And I pity for Amir Khan and Kiran – for getting counted as the latest victims of this ‘manufactured’ fear campaign carried out by the left-congress-secular trio.

A supporter’s analysis of - Bihar Election Results

(Published in the Millennium post in the issue of 13 november 2015, http://millenniumpost.in/NewsContent.aspx?NID=166146 )
      Delhi and then in Bihar, election results have thrown the biggest challenge to the BJP since Modi became its driving force. The high-energy election campaign that worked for Amit Shah and Modi in recent times, failed to yield similar results in Delhi and Bihar. Modi is however, known for converting challenges into opportunities; infusing hopes during adverse circumstances; transforming despair and despondency into hope; injecting energy into dejected admirers; turning adversaries into admirers and successfully reversing the opposition strategies into his own advantage. I am sure, his admirers including me are feeling dejected at Bihar Election results, but not him.

     Statistically speaking, the strategy of Shah and Modi has worked even during these elections very well in retaining the loyal voters with them. They have been successfully maintaining the vote-shares despite going through these trying circumstances. The extreme ‘intolerant’ opposition of BJP and especially Modi, has provided enough reasons to keep BJP supporters on their edges, completely alert and active. Due to all this, votes in favour of BJP could never decrease any significantly even in these landslide and one-sided results. This is also the reason that even in these elections, feedback received by the leaders were identical to those when BJP reported landslide victories.

     So, where have they gone wrong? 

    There are more than many theories on offer even within BJP. RSS trying to cut Modi to his size; Advani supporters engineering these debacles; Modi’s diminishing popularity or his supporters getting disillusioned – but none of these would be able to explain how he has been able to retain the voters with him. These results, not surprisingly, give an opportunity to certain elements within BJP, to vent out their frustrations even on those issues that only remotely be considered as one of the reasons for the loss. Besides this, BJP has been ‘fortunate’ enough that even their adversaries do not shy away from advising Modi to ‘correct’ himself. After all they must have never gone through such a fear of extinction as they would have felt this time whenever this government displayed any success potentials.

    In my analysis, more than the problems within, in fact BJP lost these elections only because their aggressive style of campaigning forced its opposition to unite and huddle. BJP must realize that in the present circumstances, they are bound to lose against a united opposition. Statistically, if votes were shared between AAP and Congress in Delhi elections or if Nitish and Lalu were not united in Bihar, BJP would have swept these elections with the existing share of votes. In fact one of the prime reasons of the success of Modi in the general elections 2014 has been that his opposition never believed that Modi would ever be able to cross the mark. Statistically it can never be denied that in 2014 elections, historically, BJP got the highest number of seats with smallest percentage share of votes only because the opposition never felt any reason to get united. Even in Gujarat, only in the last assembly elections, BJP was in a position of taking on a united opposition.

     Now, to turn the tide in their favour, BJP needs to convince their voters that they can deliver on their promises. Once the voters are convinced, only then as per the Gujarat model, even a united opposition would fail to make any impact. Till then, instead of following the recent short-term impact style campaigns, BJP needs to work on twin long term strategies. Firstly, they must direct their aggression to display enough examples and hints that they would be able to deliver on their promises and secondly they must try to identify potential local leaders having clean images and help them build their images on issues of common interest following a long term plan. A loss in Bihar has saved BJP from raising the expectations of the voters further that would have burdened the leadership unnecessarily. And just as Modi had controlled the lunatic elements present on his side during his Gujarat tenure, he must stop everyone from interacting with media who would keep him engaged in explanations and other damage control exercises and would derail him from his single and winning plank of development. 

BJP - the Dalit of Indian Politics

(Published in the Organiser issue of November 8,2015 http://epaper.organiser.org/epaper.aspx?lang=4&spage=Mpage&NB=2015-10-31#Mpage_25 )
        These days BJP is experiencing what Dalits generally feel when they taste success. BJP symbolizes the forces, that were till recently discarded as ‘untouchables’ by the mainstream politics. To the discomfort of these mainstream forces, they have now been able to position themselves at the fulcrum of the Indian politics from where they are about to dictate a new paradigm. The upper caste political dispensation (Congress and Left combine) are unable to digest the rise of nationalist forces. They are losing their peace and balance as they find themselves cornered in the political space - to witness what they had never dreamt of. A socio-political mindset that was created and constructed by these upper-caste political constructs and was used to enjoying power since the British rule, is now being seriously challenged by the hitherto ‘marginalized’ BJP. Those who are suffering from the ‘ill-belief’ that only British or British-like mindset (read congress) can govern India - are losing their sleeps. Those who were used to getting favours from the government in return to their full time effort in maintaining this mind set (read as Left) have suddenly started losing their grounds. These forces have invested their life in trying to make us believe that we can be properly governed only through some ‘imported ideology’. Drawing parallel with the upper caste mentality, they wanted us to believe that ‘nationalist forces’ are not good enough to govern. They are convinced that, left on our own indigenous thoughts, we will fight to finish ourselves. They think that ‘nationalists’ need to be taught lessons on the idea of 'secularism', 'socialism', 'equal opportunity' and 'development' as they have least regard for these instruments that are absolutely necessary to claim any progress in the modern world. For this, they want us to feel ashamed of our past, to disown our existence and to feel dependent on borrowed constructs and imported ideology to think of making any meaningful progress.

          Just as the upper castes, they have carefully calibrated a socio-political order where those who were ready to disown their roots/existence and were ashamed of their past were categorized as acceptable and worthy for taking control of the government whereas those who drew inspiration from the past or from indigenous thoughts were termed as lumpens and goons required to be brainwashed before giving any responsibility. This upper caste construct in our political setup believed that their empire would grow with time and would never be in danger. Their unthinkable and unimaginable fears have come true with the Modi government storming at the centre. And what is making them restless is that this government is also showing genuine promise of making India a progressive and economically developed country despite refusing to toe their prescribed line.

          Modi refused to read out the line of apology that was almost being forced by Karan Thapar just to make Modi admit his guilt; Modi refused to enact the skull-cap ‘secular’ drama, he insisted with everyone to realize the sincerity of his comment regarding puppy killing instead of retracting on the same; he started taking pride in several personalities other than Nehru and Gandhi; he started exhibiting his pride in our ancient culture, beliefs and texts – and therefore as per the judgment of the existing upper caste political construct - Modi was not fit to occupy the chair. But to snatch them of their livelihoods Modi arrived at the centre.

          With their dooming future looming large, just to prove their conjectures right, these forces are prepared to do everything to prove that this government is undesirable. To save themselves from becoming extinct, they are bent upon blowing up events after events entirely out of proportions to somehow project that India is now destined to doom, that the liberal space of this country has shrunk all of a sudden and that this country has suddenly turned into a country of cannibals and conservative intolerant. They are doing this despite the fact that this country has started showing a great turnaround in economy – that was never witnessed before in this country. A careful and academic exercise would be enough to show statistics that though the hate incidences need to be curbed immediately and effectively but contrary to the secular’s projection - it is far from peaking recently.

POLITICS ON CRIME - the Indian Phenomenon

Over the years since independence, India has developed a strange habit of classifying ‘gruesome crimes’ as - ‘hate-generating’, ‘communal clashes’, ‘religious fanaticism’, ‘class atrocities’, ‘gender suppression’, ‘reactionary outbursts’, ‘revolutionary unrest’ and recently as ‘media marketable’. To cover up the governance failures, administrative inefficiencies and other corrupt practices the administration has found it extremely useful and easy to play politics on crimes. To their relief, these classifications have helped the successive governments in setting up a trend where all other kind of crimes that are left ‘unclassified’ gets considered as ‘simple’ and therefore almost as ‘acceptable’. The information about the ‘character’ of a crime has become so important that we have got used to the news headlines such as ‘crime against minority’, ‘crime against child’, ‘crime against woman’, ‘crime against Dalit’ - so much so that thinking of headlines as ‘crime against men’, ‘crime against a majority community’, ‘crime against an adult’ or ‘crime against an upper caste’ are either likely to evoke laughter or no response at all. 

Not that the ‘classified’ crimes get any better or the desirable attention, but the government utilizes this politics only to pass the blame somehow on the majority community entirely. Being arguably one of the most tolerant and accommodating community existing in the world, this majority is then expected either to absorb the blame or to start hating itself. Under this ‘secular formula' we are expected to accept all the blame as ‘evils’ of our society and at the same time are also left to consider all other ‘unclassified’ crimes as natural, simple, normal (and therefore desirable??).

As its natural consequence the Indian administration wastes much of its precious time in ‘discovering’, ‘investigating’ and  ‘establishing’ the color and shade of a crime when it is actually required to act swiftly and efficiently. I am convinced that until this country stops taking interest in knowing the caste, gender, religion, faith and ideology of a victim – politics will continue to sideline our real administrative concerns. Instead of doing a political comparative analysis, the state must be extremely serious and ruthless in addressing all crimes and thereby punishing each criminal blindly. 

A Last chance for Development

The undeniable success of Modi in putting the issue of development right at the centre of all discussions in this country is lauded even by his adversaries. The country has got after a long time a leader who undoubtedly is able to generate positive energy and hope among the general mass. It goes to his credit entirely that he could generate positivity in majority of Indians who were feeling dejected, demoralized and were facing a bleaker future ahead. Continuous discoveries of cases of corruption, each followed by another bigger one, was breeding unrest among us and an impression that the then government was unable to take measures to arrest this dangerous trend was only blowing our woos and despondency to dangerous proportions.

Recently this newly discovered energy that was able to unite our country across all perceivable internal boundaries and reservations has started showing some real signs of strain. Modi had urged us to put all other issues on the backburner to ensure that India is placed on the right track of development. The opposition like behavior of a few outfits of RSS and BJP needs to show some maturity and restraints after they have acquired a status wherein now they are seen as having a say in the government. Before it reaches a disturbing level Modi needs to arrest the trend at once otherwise his herculean effort may meet a Kejriwali-fate. The failure of Kejriwal in controlling his own urge to behave as opposition leader had started the trend of his downfall and a similar display by those 'friendly' outfits that are perceived as favorable to the present government may do the same for Modi this time.

History and time is however is on the side of Modi. Just the way he had handled these elements in his own state he needs to repeat his performance at the centre and show that he can control this undesirable trend of some of his 'sympathizer' outfits without them feeling insinuated. If true secularism means an attitude where "India comes first" then true nationalists must give up all of their other concerns to pave a way for the real and possibly the last chance to put this country on the development track.

Arrogance of Education : In the context of HRD ministry

It is a case of colonial mindset that has established the supremacy of literary knowledge over wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience and the way that you lap up the opportunity you get in your life. We are yet to learn that any education system only helps in getting the opportunity but how to make use of that is never prompted by your acquired degrees. Though slightly less prevalent in Sciences it is somehow commonplace in Social Sciences to count and weigh the bibliography attached to one's statement before even giving it a hearing. Earlier to British invasion we probably never had a tradition of measuring the importance to a saying by weighing its originator. Traditionally we have been otherwise told that true knowledge is what that makes you bow with humility and prepares you to remain open for wisdom that can come from any quarter. The prevalent education started primarily by Britishers and later developed through Left-leaning brand of 'intellectuals' were wary of the vast knowledge and wisdom then existed in this ancient country and just out of fear established a rule to set aside all potential challenges to their fiefdom. They made reading, rote learning, passing exams and acquiring degrees essential for getting heard and noticed.

It is exactly this mind set that rates an English speaking fool better than someone arguing in a regional language. It is exactly this mindset that makes Mani Shankar Aiyar so rude to a 'tea seller' Modi. It is this rotten system of education that has injected arrogance into Maken who wants to stop a Smriti getting a chance to perform fearing that her performance might not give him another chance to raise such doubts. Kapils and Tharoors are the glaring products of this system who acquired arrogance through their degrees and have become completely non-receptive to any idea that has not originated from their school of thoughts. And for those who still doubt in this wisdom should at least learn from the attitude of the students of Harward University and IIM who did not ask Lalu to show his management degrees when he was called to deliver a lecture to share his experience in managing Indian Railways. I just hope that just an 'educated' Vivekananda had to roam around in search for an 'uneducated' Guru Ramkrishna Paramhans for his enlightenment, others do not find it that hard to get one of their own. Sri Aurobindo, a great yogi of Bengal once said: "India became free on the day when arrogant youth (Swamy Vivekananda) who had been to British schools bowed down humbly before the illiterate saint, knowing that he carried within him a greater power." 

Education, in true sense, is a progressive discovery of your own ignorance.