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In a central university, the body called Executive Council (EC) carries utmost importance, power and significance in terms of regulating the affairs. The VC derives/exercises all his/her powers only from (and on behalf of) the EC. It is therefore, practically above the VC [even though the EC does not have the power to remove/impeach the VC which makes the VCs of the India’s central universities even more powerful than the President of the Indian Republic and the Chief Justice of India, probably because of the fact that the framers of the rules could not think/foresee, even in the wildest of their imaginations, that a VC would ever do something which will necessitate his/her removal/impeachment from the office]
Not everybody may have the courage of conviction and the moral guts to admit this brute fact, but our own experiences, even though brief, do say that we, most often, elect our representatives, utterly disregarding their credibility and academic accomplishments; we do it more on parochial considerations like regionalism, casteism and factionalism. In fact, factions are so pervasive in AMU that no individual, having independence of thought and action is recognized as an individual per se. Rather, such individuals are necessarily identified (most often through rumours and slander campaign) as belonging to one or the other such ‘dirty’ factions/lobbies. In fact existence of independent spirited individuals threatens the very survival of the factions, and probably because of this, such individuals are targeted by the ‘henchmen/rumour mongers’ of the ‘faction managers’.
Greater irony is that, contrary to general perception, no such factions are based on ideologies, even though they might be selling themselves as Leftists/Islamists. [I exclude rare individual exceptions]. All these factions are opportunistic. Aren’t they? [This is a fact expressed more than once by a former Pro-V.C. of AMU, not only in leading national English daily but also in one of his mails on an alumni group-network]. Almost invariably, such affiliations are passport to win elections to all bodies including the EC. Naturally, these bodies are put to the service of protecting even the illegitimate/ immoral interests of the respective factions. Since such affiliations are easier and surer ways of ensuring recruitments, promotions (at times even without eligibility) , extracting lucrative money making assignments etc. That’s why academic accomplishments are substituted with services to the ‘factions/lobbies’?
Since the EC is practically the supreme body in university’s functioning, it may be worthwhile to examine its style of functioning. In this exercise of sketchy assessment/appraisa l of the EC, I will per force confine myself to the instances only of recent past with which I am more familiar.
1. The then VC made an explicit statement in his interview to the Times of India (March 1997), saying that “the AMU is bristling with ISI agents”, but it did not invite outrage and protest for sometimes [a small group of student activists was the only honourable exception], may be the opportunists were waiting for their appropriate moments to protest against it? It must be added here that armed with power and arrogance, he never bothered to say that he was misquoted by the press with a satisfactory explanation. [The FDR’s careful compilation of the pamphlets and other such papers of the period are explanatory testimony to that effect]
Unlike the EC meeting of 21 June 2008, one could not witness an immediately requisitioned meeting of the EC on this particular issue in April 1997. Disgustingly, the man (who later on flaunted himself as the architect of the ‘Vajpayee Himayat Committee’ even after the Gujarat pogrom of 2002) still finds his sympathizers/ admirers among the loud mouthed well wishers of the community, in AMU. Rest [including many more outrageous acts of his administration like profuse use of the emergency power, the infamous “19 (3) C”, a uniquely strange arrangement] is history, better known to many of the subscribers of these alumni group-networks. Was it because, the then VC did not belong to a ‘wrong’ region’; or because the EC of AMU has come of its age only now; or the former was more adept than the present incumbent in managing the factions that operate in AMU, or??? Many such questions emerge in the minds of those people who are sitting outside the ‘dirty world of factions’, but refuse to stay resigning from all such affairs.
2. Despite the oft repeated lip services of ensuring academic excellence, quite a large number of people in AMU have been promoted without having respectable research publications. Quite usually, only such people are given additional assignments, which are perceived as lucrative (in terms of having potential of making money through wrong means). At least this is the general perception among a large section of AMU-ites. And no credible effort has thus far been made to disprove such perceptions. (My reference is not confined merely to the treatment meted out to the Justice Mathew Report). My submission is: it is the EC which has to explain and do the needful.
3. Quite a good number of in-eligible candidates have been recruited in utter violation of rules. Justice Mathew Report is only a small tip of huge iceberg and even shelving it outrageously is too obvious. If the local Hindi daily has not misquoted the VC, one of the probable reasons for the September 2007 upsurge was the VC’s inclination to implement the Justice Mathew Report, and that the identifiable( ?) “Faction Managers” had advised/pressurized the VC not to go ahead with the Report. Surprisingly, the EC is yet to have a meeting specifically on the agenda of implementing the Report without any dilly-dallying. One may well ask the ‘upright’ members of the EC that the Report being reviewed by somebody of lesser credibility and stature than a Justice has reasons to create doubts about the sincerity to initiate action against the guilty men.
May one ask, whether depositing few crores of rupees in some other Bank is much more dangerous than recruiting in-eligible/ incompetent people as teachers? [This is not to endorse the financial irregularities but only to ascertain the comparative degree of error/ concern]. Even a superficial comparison of the two wrongs makes it abundantly clear that the prioritization of the first issue over the second one is motivated by some objectionable considerations. [I request the readers to correct me].
4. This must be the only central university in India which recruits/promotes in-eligible candidates, adds a rider apparently to reduce the degree of outrage, and then the rider added by the Selection Committee is removed by the EC, without caring for the loss of institutional credibility of the EC. Whereas, we are told that the High Court of Allahabad, in a judgment related to the Dept of English, AMU, has clearly pronounced that the Selection Committees can only select or reject, they can’t add riders. All these outrageous practices are due to the fact that the factions/lobbies can take AMU for ride.
This must be the only central university in India which recruits people on non-sanctioned and even on non-existent posts, not to say of non advertised ones. There is a ridiculous exercise of ‘Globalizing’ the vacancies, an arrangement in which a teacher of Urdu can be placed on the post of a teacher of Nuclear Physics. i.e. in AMU, cheese and chalk are one and same. And all these are endorsed/ ratified by the EC.
Why does it happen in AMU? Is it because the faction managers are too powerful to be penalized? Can’t one deduce that the factions are surviving only because they can do anything in AMU and can get away with it, leading to further expansion of their support base? Is it because of the connivance of the non teaching employees as well, who are recruited/promoted through even more objectionable mode? As said by a former teacher of AMU, that the VC secretariat of AMU suffers from “cousin syndrome”, i.e. overwhelmingly large number of these employees are cousin of (i.e. related to) each other and most of them belong to few districts of Western UP. In other words, changing the regional composition of these employees is even more necessary?
Can’t it be understood that a crackdown on such irregularities will lead to containment of such factions/lobbies and that will eventually launder/purge the AMU, once and for all? Will not such action give an administrative comfort to the VCs of AMU?
I appeal to the members of the EC and the VC to listen to this cry, if at all there is any sincerity on their part to make AMU get rid of all these nasty things.
Hope, the members the EC and the VC are listening. I also appeal to the alumni to take on the AMU administration to start a crackdown against all such illegal recruitments/ promotions/ financial irregularities. May I hope, readers of this mail are not going to maintain (criminal) silence on such issues??
Mohammad Sajjad,Lecturer,
Centre of Advanced Study in History, AMU, Aligarh
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