A Gathering of Dissent

Many student organizations, such as the All India Student Association or AISA, helped in conducting the gathering. AISA understands the termination of both professors as autocratic and of grave concern for all involved in academia. While Professor Salil Mishra was to retire from his service at the university within eight months, Professor Amita had already resigned but was not released by the administration.

This termination of permanent faculty members of AUD follows a series of other similar instances in various central universities like Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. Professors who do not identify themselves with the ruling dispensation, or ideological stance complain about being categorically identified and attacked. this attack can be in the form of a verbal warning from the office or a show cause notice, like in the case of Professor Ravi Kumar, Professor Snehashish, and Professor Irfanullah of the South Asian University. Similarly, professors like Laxman Yadav, Rituparna, Brahma Prakash and Seema Baidya are other such names from DU and JNU. The list also includes the 2023 alleged institutional killing (suicide) of Professor Samanveer, a student and ad hoc professor at Hindu College of DU(temporary basis).

According to Ambedkar University, the decision to terminate faculty members occurred after a thorough investigation and enquiry by the Directorate of Higher Education, the government of NCT of Delhi. This investigation produced several irregularities, including unauthorised appointments which led to the ultimate termination of the two professors.

 

At the Press Club

Many professors joined the solidarity meeting cum press conference on Sunday, like Professor Sandhya D Nambiar and Professor Atul Sood, faculty at the University of Delhi, and Professor Ravindran Gopinath of Jamia Millia Islamia.

During the closing remarks, Gopalji Pradhan, vice president of the Aud faculty association, said that the termination is a direct attack on the entire public education system. This attack reduces the university from a place of descent and discussion to a hostile one. It also attacks the first pillar of the Ambedkarite philosophy: Educate, Agitate, and Ignite.

The regulation of university staff has been a long-standing demand of teaching and non-teaching members of various universities. Despite no evidence of corruption or financial irregularities found, a report by Dr GS Patnaik’s committee absolved all administrators involved in the termination decision. The new committee set up by the university Board of Management also could not provide any proof to support the termination. Yet, the second report termed the two professors’ actions as ‘conduct unbecoming of a public servant’.

The event concluded with remarks from Saiyed, an AUD student from Kashmir and an active member of the campus unit of AISA. “We conducted this gathering to bring out what is happening inside AUD and to register solidarity with all the public universities who have started to treat professors as contractual workers.”, said Saiyed.

What is also surprising is the inactivity of the Delhi government on the issue. In the present times, the public image of a central university is being shifted from a sensitive space of critical thinking to an in-tolerance space with political hooliganism. This has pushed parents and students to take up private colleges over public universities, benefiting business houses and making education a private enterprise.