The Delhi University Teachers’ Association kick-started its indefinite hunger strike on Wednesday against the Vice-Chancellor for “overstepping his brief to impose coercive modes of governance within the university,” and are planning a candle-light vigil on Friday night to further their cause.
Teachers chose to take classes and visit during their free time, with only those teachers on the hunger strike choosing to remain the whole day, which explained the muted tone of the dharna.
“Twenty-three teachers from Ramjas College, Daulat Ram College, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce and Deen Dyal Upadhyay College were sitting on the hunger strike alongwith the DUTA executive members,” said DUTA president Amar Deo Sharma, adding that he along with DUTA secretary S. D. Siddiqui, former DUTA president Aditya Narayan Misra and Academic Council members A.K. Bhagi and M.R. Chikkara were on hunger strike on Wednesday.
“Our candle-light vigil is for the 4,000 teachers who have been condemned to continue teaching in ad-hoc capacity and despite being eligible, are faced with little prospect of regularisation in the near future,” said DUTA member Saikat Ghosh.
Mr. Sharma added that similar action programmes and cultural protests would be held to highlight each issue that the DUTA had been articulating over the past year.
