Teachers spoke out against the Vice Chancellor’s insane refusal to engage with the DUTA. While the DUTA had led its struggle so far on the strength of its ideas, the VC seemed to offer no credible arguments to challenge the grievances that the DUTA has expressed over the past year. Teachers questioned the dubious merits of the ‘academic reforms’ when the failure of the semester system in ensuring the rigorous standards of teaching-learning within the University had become so plainly evident. Despite the University’s departments earning consistent merit (like the English Department which has been ranked among the top hundred English departments of the world in the recently released World University Rankings) the VC was out to portray his own teachrs in a very negative light. This attitude was condemned by the teachers present on the occasion. The VC was further described as a “stooge” of the anti-democratic and neoliberal government at the Centre, and as someone who had no ideas “of his own.”
While expressing her support to the DUTA, Prof. Madhu Prasad, the Delhi Convener of the All-India Forum for Right to Education, expressed a deep sense of irony at the fact that despite having been a student of DU, the VC had been displaying ignorance about the DUTA’s historic contribution in preserving and nurturing the academic prestige of the University. Former DUTA President Prof. Shaswati Mazumdar denounced the current University Administration as one which had earned unprecedented public notoriety for itself as being the most uncivil and hostile administration in the history of the University.
As the evening wore on, hundreds of more teachers from campus colleges and University departments started congregating for the candle-light vigil. Scores of ad-hoc teachers also joined the vigil in which candles symbolizing these ad-hoc teachers were lit and the issues of the harsh treatment being meted out to them by denying them of basic rights like medical coverage, opportunities for attending seminars and conferences, duty benefits and job security were being denied through a systematic imposition of contractual employment, were raised. The darkness outside the VC’s office was pierced by the hundreds of candles that were lit by teachers who exhorted the VC to see light and reverse his authoritarian ways and instead, follow a humanist vision of leadership within the University. The DUTA Indefinite Relay Hunger Strike will carry on into its fourth day tomorrow, with more teachers from other colleges being expected to join in.
S.D. Siddiqui, Secretary Amar Deo Sharma, President
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