‘JNU under threat from single source’

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) on Friday said it was expecting a “crackdown” by the university administration on individual teachers and association office-bearers for highlighting and raising their voice against the “arbitrary and authoritarian functioning” of the varsity since Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar took over.

“The stage has already been set for a crackdown as minutes of the latest Executive Council meeting state there will be disciplinary action against individual teachers. Sadly, committees have a predictable composition of nominated favourites in JNU nowadays and are set up not to initiate discussion on an issue but merely to implement predetermined decisions and silence any form of dissent,” said the JNUTA.

Appeal to President, PM

It said it will appeal to the President, the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Human Resource Development to look into the way in which the university is being run, with complete disregard for the university’s Acts, statutes, provisions for social and gender justice, and violation of the Central Education Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act, 2006.

“We request them to take note of and intervene in a situation that is akin to a pressures cooker with no release valve. India’s most acknowledged and globally recognised public university, which has been the pride of the country for five decades, today stands threatened in multiple ways — and the threat emanates from a single source,” said the teachers.

V-C slammed

“We wish to ask all those concerned whether a V-C who has intentionally violated policies relating to social justice, who has weakened the structures of gender justice and who has pointedly sought to attack the normative and legal foundations on which JNU has been built can continue as head of this institution,” said JNUTA.