Braving the scorching heat, the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) on Wednesday led a protest in which several teachers participated in a day-long mass hunger strike against the Central government’s “attack” on the reservation policy.
The focus of the protest was the UGC’s March 5 notification asking universities and colleges to redraw their reservation rosters on the basis of departments as units.
“If the notification is not withdrawn, it will set the affirmative policy of social justice through reservation back by decades. A whole generation of research scholars from SC, ST and OBC categories who are waiting for academic jobs will get excluded by this absurd anti-reservation decision,” said DUTA president Rajib Ray.
‘Would create chaos’
He added that the move undermines the proportionate method of ensuring that constitutionally mandated reservation percentages are met, for each category.
The DUTA said that if implemented, the notification would create chaos and mass displacement among working ad hoc teachers in the varsity when they will be due for re-appointment in the month of July, 2018.
“All current ad hoc teachers have been appointed as per the 200-point college/university-wise roster which is to be discontinued, as per the March 5 notification. The displacement of currently working ad hoc teachers threatens to undermine the DUTA’s legitimate demand for regularisation of thousands of ad hoc teachers who have been serving DU and its colleges for many years, without any job security or regular service benefits,” the teachers’ association said.
The DUTA in a letter to the UGC and the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) said that if a single ad hoc teacher is displaced in July, as a result of “its standoffish attitude and mischievous refusal to restore the status quo on roster,” DU would proceed on a complete lockdown in the new session.
