Delhi University teachers, who have been protesting against the new University Grants Commission (UGC) criteria to ascertain their academic performance and increase in teaching hours, on Friday marched towards the Union Human Resource Development Ministry office at Shastri Bhawan, but were stopped midway by the police.
Around 600 DU teachers were held at the Parliament Street police station as part of “preventive detention” and released after a few hours.
The march got disrupted at Feroz Shah Road after protesters broke barricades and courted arrest. Wearing black headbands, thousands of teachers started their march from Mandi House demanding that the Ministry give them a written assurance that their workload norms will remain unchanged. The protesters also wore badges stating “We, ad hocs, want our jobs back” and carrying umbrellas with “Say no to API” written on them.
Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) president Nandita Narain told The Hindu : “The Ministry has only given verbal assurance that it will roll back these draconian policies, but that is not enough. If it doesn’t give us written assurance, we will only have to step up our agitation. We received another notification from the UGC last [on Thursday] night, which we will present to our executive body in the meeting on Saturday.”
Addressing the protesters before the march, Ms. Narain said: “The kalli-patti [black headband] march is against [Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti] Irani’s anti-student, anti-education and anti-teachers policies”.
(The writer is an Intern with The Hindu)
