Removal of chairpersons, dean: JNUTA begins 'satyagraha' protest

New Delhi: The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers' Association (JNUTA) on Monday began its 'satyagraha' protest against the administration over the removal of seven chairpersons and a dean. Three teachers have even gone on hunger strike.

"The decision to remove seven chairpersons and deans for not complying with or refusing to implement the recent attendance system is illegal. The teachers have gone for three days strike starting from Monday and three teachers are on hunger strike," said JNUTA Secretary Sudhir Kumar Suthar. The JNUTA staged a protest outside the administration block and also warned that they would undertake a protest march to Parliament. It also blamed the Vice Chancellor for creating chaos in the campus by announcing "unpleasant orders."

"The JNU administration is giving illegal orders and asking us to obey its decision without hearing our opinion," said the dean, who was removed from the School of Arts and Aesthetics. Criticising the recent attendance system, she said that it will create hurdles for researchers as they can not attend classes on a regular basis.

"There are so many technical issues that need to be addressed and it can be sorted out with the dialogues but the administration did not hear their pleas," another professor said.

"The aim of this movement is to expose the lies being generated by the administration in order to cover up its repeated violations of decision-making procedures, such as mandating marking of attendance through signatures, vivas-over-SKYPE, getting important decisions like interfering with panel of experts for selection processes, supersession in appointments of deans and chairs, targeting of individual faculty members, arbitrary denial of promotions under CAS, arbitrary non-renewals of wardenships and the dismantling of the well functioning GSCASH "passed" without proper discussion and creating "compliant" bodies with no room for dissent by arbitrarily silencing voices of dissent –are cumulatively aimed at tarnishing the image of academic excellence that the university has painstakingly built over the decades and destroying the agenda of social justice that the university has consistently espoused," Jawahar Lal Nehru Teachers' Association said in a Press statement.

A student pursuing Ph.D in Modern History said that administration is trying to kill activism by forcing an attendance system.