Critique of UGC’s New Service Conditions

(Here is a hurriedly prepared critique of the new UGC guidelines/ service conditions for University/ College teachers. It might interest some of our colleagues. I shall greatly appreciate your comments)

Herewith I respond to item Nos 6.4.2 to 6.4.5 on pages 14 and 15. These are new guidelines which the UGC has proposed and put them on its website with a view to seeking comments/suggestions from concerned quarters. I find the new rules/guidelines extremely discriminatory against the Readers. In fact, it goes against the HRD Notification/ Board guidelines and has sought to curtail the benefits of Readers which they otherwise deserve.
Whosoever has formulated these guidelines/ rules has wrongly understood that the post of Readers is inferior to that of Associate Professor. The Chandha Committee Report has merely changed the nomenclatures from Lectures and Readers to Assistant and Associate Professors. There is no change in substance. That the two positions are not substantially different from one another. It would really be cruel to subject Readers, many of whom were recruited directly on general posts some 12 years ago, to face interview once again to become Associate Professor which in substance is nothing but the old position of Reader. Whosoever has designed this rule has merely exhibited his mental and intellectual bankruptcy.
Senior Readers have been subjected to more humiliation when the framers of the new rules ignored their longer period of service. Today there are Readers with seven or eight years of service; still others have 12 or more years of service because they were unfairly rejected by “hostile administrations” when they sought professorship under CAS. Under the new guidelines they are being placed with the newly-recruited Associate Professor which means their longer period of service as Reader is being treated as insignificant and therefore underserving of any additional monetary incentives. It may be noted that the Fifth Pay Commission had applied the formula of one increment for three increments for all Lectures, Readers and Professors. The Readers who had completed five years of service on 01-01-1996 or attained this mark on 31-12-1996 were placed at Rs 14940/-. This was a genuine recognition of the longer period of service that the Readers had rendered. Fro reasons best known to the UGC or the Sixth Pay Commission, senior Readers are not only being treated unfairly but are also being humiliated. A humiliated army of Readers would not serve the purpose of higher education.
To give concession to the UGC, it might be in the fitness of things to place even the newly and directly recruited Associate Professors in the pay grade of 15600-39000 for three years and thereafter they automatically move to the level of Associate Professor. In an otherwise case, it would be right to conclude that being senior academics is like being a disadvantage, monetarily as well as intellectually.
There is another drawback which I would like to point out. Often academics with independent minds are victimized, so much so that some affected faculties even file cases in the courts. Most such litigations result from the arbitrariness of administrations/ vice chancellors. Some Vice Chancellors even favour their sycophants and indulge in brazen violation of rules/regulations. The UGC must take note of such very real happenings and come out with or set up a grievance redressal mechanism. This might minimize/ prevent victimization at academic campuses.
The main purpose of a teacher is teaching and research and his participation in co-curricular activities is secondary. But surprisingly the API and WP have assigned only 150 points for teaching and even less for research works/ publications. Why the hell anyone would like to supervise a thesis to secure 10 points or write a book to be published by international publishers to obtain 20 points. Instead, he would be well-advised to organize cultural evenings etc to secure 200 points. One wonders if this is the way to promote higher education.
Even more disturbing is the nefarious distinction between Indian and International publications. Does it mean that nay thing published in India is not international? Or what constitutes to be international should have been explained. The impression I have gathered is that things Indian are necessarily condemned to be inferior to things “international”. Foreign academics must be laughing at the inferiority complex of those who have framed these guidelines. In my opinion one must clarify first what is meant by “Indian” and “international” and only then qualify a publication with being inferior or superior. Moreover, I feel, publications, Indian or international, should be given more weightage than extra curricular activities and contribution to corporate life of campuses.
The bureaucracy seems to be avowedly biased against the teaching community. Even a Vice Chancellor would not get parity with them. The Fifth Pay Commission had fixed the salary of a Vice Chancellor at Rs 25000/-, which was on par with that of a secretary of Government of India. The Sixth Pay Commission, however, has degraded Vice Chancellors by fixing their pay at Rs 75000/-. Well, in addition they will get an extra amount of 5000/- as special pay but the fact is that they are equal to additional secretary only, a step below the secretary, Government of India. Heavens would not have fallen, had Vice Chancellor’s salary been fixed at Rs 80,000/-. But this was not to be just to satisfy the bloated ego of the over-rated IAS fraternity.
But the saddest aspect is that the Vice Chancellors have swallowed this bitter pill without protest. There are both good and bad Vice Chancellors. The good ones must have been busy with developing ideas and strategies to develop their institutions. And the bad ones are so much busy with victimizing their independent-minded subordinates that they hardly find time to protect even their own status and honour. But the teaching community also failed as a whole when it did not lodge protest against the degradation of the heads of their institutions.

Maliki Deserved the Second Shoe

The less than a minute affair has become one of the most memorable moment of history, not because it presented a pleasant sight but due to the insult it heaped on Mr. George Bush, the arrogant and brutal invader and destroyer of Iraq. Mr. Bush was addressing a press conference in the heavily fortified green zone of Baghdad when a television journalist, Muntazar al-Zaidi threw his shoe on him. The shoe missed the target, as Mr. Bush ducked and dodged. Before any one could fathom what was happening, when al-Zaidi threw his second shoe at the American president which was off the mark again. Mr. Bush seemed a bit disturbed and the colour of his face changed and darkened for a moment. Then the Iraqi secret agents overpowered him and reportedly broke one of his legs and ribs.
Iraq’s American agents easily overpowered al-Zaidi but can they also erase the symbolic meaning of the occasion which the entire world has watched either on televisions or on countless websites. Can they suppress the reverberating words which al-Zaidi uttered while targeting Mr. Bush with his shoes? Al-Zaidi is reported to have said, while throwing the first shoe at Mr. Bush, that it was the farewell kiss or parting kick to the dog that invaded and destroyed Iraq. And when he targeted Mr. Bush with his second shoe, he said that this was from hundreds of thousands of those who have been orphaned and widowed by the war he had imposed on Iraq.
In Islamic and Eastern traditions guests are not welcome with shoes being thrown at them. But was Mr. Bush really a guest? Surely he was being welcome in Baghdad by those who had come to Iraq in 2003 on American tanks to occupy their own country. But for millions of Iraqis, who have lost kiths and kins as well as their freedom, he is the most hated enemy who carries the blood of innocent children and women on his sleeves. What is wrong if such cruel men, rather brutes, are welcome with shoes by the occupied and oppressed people?
Al-Zaidi, or his action, is symbolic in many ways. He, like millions of Iraqis, did not have the means, especially weapons, to fight against illegal American invasion and occupation of his country. He, therefore, chose to insult the main American culprit by throwing his shoes at him. Al-Zaidi is also a Shiite and by his action, lauded across the Arab world, he has punctured the American propaganda that only the Saddamists or a tiny group of Iraqi Sunnis, opposes the US presence in Iraq. Finally, al-Zaidi is an educated and well-paid Iraqi who, by his action, has shattered the American myth that only the unprivileged Iraqis dislike Mr. Bush.
The so called Islamist Dawah Party to which the American stooge, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, belongs, has been trying hard to impress upon the world that all was right in Iraq. The Americans, too, have been propagating the same thing. The Shiite religious class, led by Ayatullah Seestani, has been campaigning that the insurgency in Iraq was on the decline. The world media, probably now tired of reporting the routine or daily bloodbath and anti-Americanism, has also been silent about Iraq for a while. But now all these have changed all of a sudden owing to the laudable action of Al-Zaidi. He has told the world that Iraq is an occupied country which needs the world’s attention and support for its liberation and freedom from the cruel American occupation.
Since 9/11 the arrogant American president has behaved in a way as he has the sole right to unleash violence against individuals and countries whom he regards as enemy of the so called free world. He says or decides some thing and thinks that the world must accept it without questioning. There are countries which have problems with other countries but they, unlike America and Israel, do not attack them. Instead they approach the Security Council of the United Nations for punishing countries and individuals being held responsible for unleashing terror against the innocent people. By throwing shoes at Bush al-Zaidi has broken his arrogance. This symbolic method of protest must serve as a reminder to Mr. Obama, who is planning to do to Afghanistan what Bush has done to Iraq, that brutal invasions do not solve any problem and that lack or absence of opposition to occupation does not mean that people have accepted it. If not a military, at least al- Zaidi might stand to protest and heap insult on the mighty and the arrogant that Mr. Bush has been throughout his eight years in White House. His method of protest apart, Zaidi has shown how arrogance can be insulted and humbled. He did all the right things except that he should have thrown the second shoe at Maliki whose collaboration with Bush’s occupation of Iraq is equally sinister.

[December, 2008]