The Jawaharlal Nehru Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) on Monday organised a day-long ‘aakrosh dharna’ on campus to protest against the “undemocratic, authoritarian and unilateral functioning of the JNU administration and the V-C”.
The teachers demanded for a “roll back of compulsory attendance”. The notification by the administration asking students to sign in every day has seen strong protests by the JNUTA and the JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU).
“The JNUTA is clear, this way of functioning, marked by flagrant violations of due process and the complete refusal to negotiate with the stakeholders, is responsible for the current crisis facing the university,” said Sonajharia Minz, president of the JNUTA.
She alleged that the administration had not responded to any of their emails appealing for a meeting, but as soon as they started their dharna and called for a press conference, the administration invited two of the members to attended a meeting on issues facing the university.
Sudhir Kumar Suthar, secretary of the JNUTA, said that the administration does not want to have a dialogue and are adamant on spreading a “lie” that the new attendance rule was “discussed at length” and “passed by a majority opinion” by the Academic Council.
“This is similar to several other decisions that have been implemented such as the seat cut in MPhil and PhD courses, and withdrawal of deprivation point system,” he added.
“It is important to note that it is not just the substance of mandatory attendance that is questionable but the manner in which it has been imposed, with subversion of consultative procedures devoid of due process,” the JNUTA stated.
It added that the “stony silence” with which all its attempts to speak with the V-C have been met, is indicative of an effort to delegitimise the association that was voted in by a strong majority of the teaching community, over 90% of whom came to cast their vote.
Meanwhile, a group of 40 faculty members that disassociated themselves with the JNUTA dharna, held a press conference and accused the office-bearers of the association of spreading false information regarding mandatory attendance.
Among the 40 teachers were Chief Proctor Kaushal Kumar, who although a part of the administration said that he was at the briefing as a faculty member.
Aatul Johri, one of the teachers who opposed the dharna, said: “The JNU administration is only formalising procedures of attendance in classrooms, tutorials and discussion meetings as prescribed by the UGC guidelines and the JNU Ordinance (Para 10, Section C approved in 1970).”
“The V-C must be complimented for formalising the attendance rule. If previous administrators of JNU had done this then this varsity would have been the best in the world,” Mr. Johri added.
