Teachers resist rules, government backs off

In the last fortnight, there were two interesting developments concerning two Central universities.  One involved the setting up of a working group by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to consider bringing examinations, teaching, learning, and evaluation in Delhi University under the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), 1968. This was close on the heels of a previous UGC directive to all Central universities to adopt Central Civil Services (CCS) Rules for teachers. The twin moves, teachers unions said, were on account of the steady opposition by teachers’ organisations and unions to privatisation and commercialisation of higher education.

That the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) was singled out for the ESMA notification was not coincidental. After all, Delhi University is the largest Central university in the country and its teachers’ association a fairly militant body. If the experiment could succeed in D.U., the rest of the Central universities would follow suit. The ESMA would in effect have put an end to all university strikes led by teachers by placing teaching and allied activities as “essential public services”. The DUTA pointed out that it was the government that had failed in its essential duties to fill the vacancies in posts, including reserved posts. Perhaps sensing the growing opposition, the Human Resource Development Ministry announced the dissolution of the working group. 

The other Central university that has been in news for some time is  Jawaharlal Nehru University. On October 5, the Academic Council adopted ordinances in the framework of the new UGC regulations regarding the application of CCS Rules for the faculty. The teachers’ association viewed this as yet another attempt to muzzle dissent. The CCS Rules, 1964, basically prohibited government servants from being associated with any political party or organisation that took part in politics, apart from imposing restrictions on canvassing for a party, criticising action or policy of the Central government or State governments and so on. Forty-eight teachers were issued show-cause notices under these ordinances for having participated in protests against decisions of the JNU administration. The fact was that more than 48 teachers had participated. It was argued by the teachers’ association that such rules could apply to administrative positions and not to persons involved in areas relating to knowledge generation and critical inquiry. One professor of Economics pointed out that economics professors could be punished for discussing economic policy, political science teachers for discussing politics, environmental science professors for discussing environmental policy, and so on. 

The teachers took to twitter to mobilise opinion against the CCS Rules for the faculty. In the executive council meeting on October 23, the administration withdrew its decision and announced it through a press release. A committee was set up, instead, to frame conduct rules for teaching and non-teaching employees. 

While on both counts, the teaching community was able to fend fiats from above that were aimed at reining in the academic community, teachers are aware of the clear and present danger to academic, teaching and intellectual autonomy.