People's Democracy

TEACHERS of Delhi University and its colleges slapped a crushing defeat on the BJP and its allies by electing Shaswati Mazumdar of the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) as the president of the Delhi University Teachers' Association (DUTA). Three of the four DTF members of the DTF, who contested for the DUTA executive committee --- Barkatullah Khan, Mukti Sanyal and Sanjaya Kumar Bohidar --- were elected. The elections to the post of president and 15-member DUTA executive committee were held on August 30.

The BJP’s teachers’ wing, NDTF, and another group, AAD, which had always been colluding with NDTF, were jointly in the leadership of DUTA over the last four years. This leadership had failed to safeguard and further the genuine interests of the teaching community and of higher education. The main agenda of this leadership was to manipulate appointments of teachers and college principals. Because of obvious reasons, they did not bother about the disastrous impact of liberalisation and Hindutva on higher education. While the BJP-led central government is pushing, through the UGC, lakhs of rupees into universities for starting courses on Jyotirvigyan and Karmakand, it was not giving even a single penny for starting new courses or upgrading the existing ones. The NDTF/AAD leadership of the DUTA remained silent on this issue. It also remained silent on the UGC move to introduce courses on Spoken Sanskrit in universities, for which teachers with just a BA degree would be directly recruited by the UGC. The NDTF/AAD leadership criticised neither the attempts to undermine the rational, scientific and secular basis of education nor the attack on university autonomy and the abrogation by the UGC of the academic decision-making powers of universities.

Even on the pay revision-related issues, there was no progress and gains of the earlier struggles were lost. The central government went back on written agreements, and the third promotion and promotion to professorship in colleges was summarily withdrawn. The Career Advancement Scheme has not been implemented with effect from January 1, 1996. The parity of librarians with teachers, which had been done away with by the UGC, has not been restored as yet. These were three of the major demands when the outgoing leadership of the DUTA took charge in 1999. During the period of this leadership, teachers faced large-scale difficulties. It is for the first time that the promotion to readership, reader’s grade and even first promotion to senior scale have been denied to several teachers. A number of teachers have faced huge losses in financial terms at the time of retirement because the rules were changed for calculating full pensionary benefits. The authorities have also started denying reemployment to teachers. The DUTA remained a mute spectator and did not raise any voice against these measures. Teachers felt cheated and lost interest in the DUTA leadership and its activities. During the campaign, it became known that the teachers were preparing to throw the NDTF/AAD leadership out of DUTA.

Apart from the above issues, the DTF agenda further included the democratisation of the governing bodies of colleges with at least 50 per cent elected academic component, term posts for principals, centralised recruitment of teachers to avoid manipulations in the appointment of teachers, more and statutory powers to the staff councils both in colleges and the university departments. The DTF agenda also laid emphasis on academic reforms and accountability of teachers, principals, senior administrators and the vice chancellor and his team.

Unable to show any gains and trying to hide the losses in the last four years during their leadership, the NDTF/AAD launched a personal attack against Shaswati Mazumdar. These groups called upon teachers not to elect her DUTA president on the grounds that a woman could not lead the DUTA and that a university appointed teacher (currently a reader in German Studies) who was going to be a professor in due course of time would not fight for the interests of college teachers. Teachers rejected this campaign of distinguishing between men and women teachers and breaking the unity between university appointed teachers and college teachers (which has been the game-plan of the ministry of HRD and UGC). Teachers came in large numbers on the polling day to repose their confidence in the DTF leadership and created history by electing Shaswati Mazumdar --- the first woman as well as a university appointed teacher --- as the president of the DUTA.

Shaswati Mazumdar got 1825 votes and defeated her nearest AAD rival by 240 votes. The BJP-backed candidate got only 1204 votes. AAD and BJP/NDTF were further humiliated when they lost one candidate each for the DUTA executive as well.

Shaswati Mazumdar started her political career as a member of the SFI in 1977 and was elected to the JNU Students Union as a councillor in the same year. Ever since she joined the University of Delhi as a lecturer in 1979, in the Department of Germanic and Romance Studies, she has been active in the teachers’ movement. She was joint secretary of the DUTA in 1985-87 when major struggles were launched, and won for the restoration of Merit Promotion Scheme of 1983. She was DUTA secretary in 1995-97 when a comprehensive charter of demands was formulated and adopted and the struggle launched for pay revision.