“DUTA, March On!”

Delhi University Teachers’ Association organised yet another ‘dharna’

on Wednesday, 10th November at 2pm in front of the recently appointed

Vice Chancellor, Dinesh Singh’s office in North Campus. It was in

furtherance of protest against the implementation of the semester system

in 13 undergraduate science courses.

The event was mainly presided over by Prof. Aditya Narayan Misra,

leader of DUTA. Although these protests have been very common over

the last year, Wednesday witnessed a group of teachers with rapidly

diminishing tolerance.

Prof. Misra spoke about the association’s recent grievances. The letter

sent by the university on November 2, asking colleges to withhold

teachers’ salaries if they do not submit an undertaking stating that they

will teach in the semester mode, became a reality in Hindu College,

Miranda House, Kirori Mal College, Dayal Singh College and Acharya

Narendra Dev College. The teachers of these colleges have not received

salaries for September and October. The teachers of Guru Nanak Dev

College and Guru Gobind Singh College resigned en masse in protest.

More recently, there were some disturbances and protests in Ambedkar

College where police was called in to issue arrest warrants against the

involved teachers.

DUTA claims that the VC and HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal gave

statements in the press without ever consulting them or the Students’

Executive Council. They say that they were given several dates for

discussion during last May and June by Prof, Deepak Pental which

were later cancelled on some pretext or the other. There has still been

no ‘civilised’ debate on the issue between DUTA and the University.

They were very clear that “police and the hon’ble High Court cannot be

brought in to run a university”.

In view of the recent events, Prof. Misra gave strict directives to his

colleagues on the 10th November. He urged every teacher to vehemently

oppose the semester system and told them that “all exams should be

planned as per the previous pattern of the annual mode”. To professors

of science, he said “no teacher should set a paper or invigilate any

practical if semester system is forcefully implemented”. He stated loudly

that “semester system is not the yardstick for the achievement of a

university. It does not make the university better and different regions

have to follow different patterns according to their needs.”

An important revelation that was made during the event was that

Principals of several colleges are allegedly reporting to the VC that their

college is prepared for the semester system when in reality even half the

syllabus has not been covered in majority of the courses thus far. For this,

Prof. Misra requested students to speak up. He asked the teachers to “step

down from every post that you hold in your college. Let the Principal run

the entire college by himself!” (sic)

The speech was periodically interspersed with slogans of “DUTA,

march on! Semester system nahi chalega” and “DUTA zindabaad!”

Prof. Abha Dev Habib of the Physics Department of Miranda House

shared her thoughts and said “Semester System cannot be implemented

with the heterogeneous mix of students that DU admits every year.

DU cannot be compared to IIT and JNU which are autonomous bodies

that cater to a homogeneous crowd because of their specialised entry

requirements. Its implementation will significantly harm science students

and remove the procedure of re-evaluation of answer scripts. The

MHRD’s sole purpose of imposing the system on DU is to enable it to

collaborate with foreign universities and they are not looking into the best

interest of the students. The VC is using his ‘emergency powers’ which

are not required right now as we have done nothing wrong. Teachers are

on strike not because they want vacation or to wreak havoc but because

they want to stand up for what they feel is right. Some of the best teachers

of DU are here today and we have all come after taking our classes.”

Amrita Dasgupta

[email protected]