JNU admin scouting for room for women's club in the midst of Covid19 surge

JNU Teachers Association , incensed at the demand, has circulated the following mail to its members, questioning the urgency and sense of priority of the caretaker Vice Chancellor and the JNU administration. The text of the mail circulating in the campus is reproduced below.

Dear Colleagues,
Just wanted to update you all about a letter that we received from the administration (the Estates Department ) yesterday.

We have sent so many letters to the administration on different issues and have never really heard back from them. So yesterday we were a bit surprised when we received an email from them.

The email sent by Joint Registrar Estates No. Estate/JNUTA/2021/ dated 7th May 2021, informed us of the EC Resolution No. 5.20 that resolved to allocate 1st and 2nd room with attached washroom on the left hand side at entry point of JNU Faculty Activity Centre to JNU Women's Club for cultural, office and other activities.

It then went on to order JNUTA to hand over the said rooms to the caretaker of the Estate Branch within 3 days of the receipt of the letter. Needless to state the letter issued carried the usual disclaimer about the Competent Authority and his approval on the suggested course of action. It is interesting to note that the 294th EC meeting where such a decision was taken was held on 26 March 2021, nearly one and a half months back.

The timing of this letter is telling. On 5^th May JNUTA issued a press statement demanding the resignation of the Caretaker Vice Chancellor and promptly on 7 May exactly two days later the following letter was sent to JNUTA. The timing of a letter requesting JNUTA to hand over keys within three days in the midst of lockdown and caused by the Second wave of Covid, goes to show not just the vindictiveness that guides the JNU administration’s behaviour but also as to how far removed they are from dealing with the Covid crisis at the ground level.

At a time when there is so much crisis around us, we are shocked to see that the Caretaker Vice Chancellor has taken upon himself the mantle of securing office space for the Womens’ Club, by taking away space allotted to JNUTA by his predecessors. This action of his, like many others, is demonstrative of his top-down style of functioning which does not involve consultation with major stakeholders, in this case the office bearers of JNUTA.

As per our records, the matter was first tabled as an agenda item in the 287th EC meeting held on 7 September 2020. The initial Resolution as contained in the Minutes of the meeting recorded the following decision : “The request of JNU Women’s Club for allocation of space was discussed in detail and Council resolved to allocate Space/Room in JNU Campus to JNU Women’s Club as suggested by the Space Allocation Committee.”

Nowhere in the recorded Minutes did it state that the space allotted to Womens’ Club would be made available by taking away the rooms allotted to JNUTA. The EC meeting explicitly referred to JNU campus and not any specific room allotted to JNUTA. In the 26^th March Executive Council Meeting however, the above decision of the EC was rephrased to explicitly demand rooms for the Womens’ Club from JNUTA.

Given the timing and manner in which this specific request has been made, we feel compelled to share the contents of this letter with all our members and hope that you will see through the vindictiveness which guides the actions of the present administration headed by Prof. Jagadesh Kumar.

Milap C Sharma, President JNUTA

Moushumi Basu, Secretary JNUTA

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