People's Democracy

 AIFUCTO Plans Demo Against Joshi At Allahabad

 C R Sadasivan

THE All India Federation of University and Collage Teachers’ Organisations (AIFUCTO) held its 22nd conference at the sprawling Andheri sports complex in Mumbai on October 20, 21 and 22. Over 325 delegates and 50 observers from different parts of the country attended the national conference.

The conference venue was named ‘E N Manjrekar Nagar’ in memory of one of the stalwarts of the teachers’ movement in Mumbai, Maharashtra and India. The conference was inaugurated by Dr K N Panikkar, vice chancellor of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kaladi, Kerala. Dr Bhalchandra Mungekar, vice chancellor of the University of Mumabi, was the guest of honour.

In his long address to the delegates and observers at the conference, Dr Panikkar traced the history of education in India and bemoaned that there was an all round decline in the last 15 years or so. Identifying the causes for the decline, he pointed out that the new economic policy with its emphasis on privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation was responsible for this decline. The union and state governments were withdrawing from funding of education in the country, which has had an adverse impact on the community. He urged for efforts on part of the teaching community to ensure that autonomy of the Indian universities was maintained at all cost, and to work towards saving and strengthening the government funded education.

Dr Bhalchandra Mungekar went into the serious inequalities that continue to exist in the Indian society, with the authorities making no serious effort to fight the menace. He stated that while the constitution, with its emphasis on equality, had provided for removal of untouchability, no one was bothering for the more important need, viz, the eradication of the caste system in India.

While welcoming the delegates and observers to Mumbai, reception committee chairman Dr K K Theckedath made a reference to the historical role played by Mumbai in the struggles for protecting the interests of Indian working masses from the days of the British rule. The holding of the AIFUCTO’s national conference in Mumbai was therefore quite appropriate. He also referred to the worst days of the communal holocaust in Mumbai after the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1002, and the spread of the poison of communalism that was seeking to tear asunder the secular and democratic fabric of our society.

AIFUCTO president Professor Anil Bhattacharya referred to the various problems the teachers were facing due to non-implementation of the agreement arrived at by the HRD minister and the AIFUCTO on September 6, 1998. He stated that the politically motivated HRD minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi was refusing to meet the representatives of the Left-oriented organisations like the AIFUCTO though it has 4 lakh teachers in its fold. The teachers’ movement has therefore to intensify its struggle against the centre and such states as are ignoring the teaching community.

A national seminar on the theme of ‘Higher Education and Economic Development’ was also held on the sidelines of the conference. University of Mumbai vice chancellor Professor Bhalchandra Mungekar inaugurated it. Professor Satyasadhan Chakraborty, who is the minister for higher and technical education in the Left Front government of West Bengal, spoke of the emergence of neo-colonialism in India and in the developing countries whose economic and other policies were dictated by the IMF-WB-WTO trio. A number of academicians and intellectuals participated in the national seminar and dozens of papers were presented on the theme mentioned above, after Dr Jose George, reader in the department of civics and politics at the University of Mumbai, presented his theme paper. Vidya Sagar University vice chancellor Dr Anand Deb Mukhopadhyaya, who attended as a special invitee of the AIFUCTO, and Professor C R Sadasivan, national secretary of the AIFUCTO, chaired two sessions of the national seminar and also spoke on the specified theme.

At the conference, AIFUCTO general secretary Professor Dr B Vijay Kumar presented a detailed report for consideration, which included an analysis of the international situation, national situation and issues concerned with higher education. The report was unanimously adopted after long deliberation spanned over four sessions. The conference also adopted an action programme, which is based on the following:

1) Holding demonstrations at the district level in all states some time in December coming. The date for it will be decided by the AIFUCTO executive committee later.

2) A strike of all university and college teachers --- that is, an Education Bandh --- at the all-India level some time in January 2004, on a date to be decided by the AIFUCTO. 

3) Organisation of a demonstration at Allahabad, in the political constituency of the union HRD minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, for his failure to keep the promises contained in the agreement that the HRD ministry and the AIFUCTO had arrived at on September 6, 1998.