JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar’s presence at a teachers protest outside UGC office against the new norms to ascertain their performance has left a group of DU faculty members miffed.
Members of various teachers’ associations were protesting at the UGC office on Monday while consultations were on with officials inside when Kumar landed up there to show solidarity with the agitating teachers.
However, he was not allowed to speak by a group of right-wing teachers who were vehemently opposed by a group of Left-wing teachers present at the protest.
The fight later spilled over to social media with Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) president Nandita Narain claiming that Kumar was “heckled” and “humiliated” and that in future they have to face her first before reaching to the student leader.
“It is most unfortunate that the JNUSU president who had come to express his solidarity to the teachers’ struggle, was heckled and humiliated by a handful of people.
“Kanhaiya will come again to our rallies as will all other students union leaders and other students’ organisations that support us and anyone who tries to heckle or humiliate him or snatch the mike will first have to knock me over!,” Narain said in a Facebook post.
Abhishek Tandon, a DU faculty, posted that it is better to adopt the UGC amendment than to take support from Kumar.
“All of us should unanimously condemn the presence of anti-nationals at teachers forum. We should not take or give any kind of support to people involved in anti-national activities. It’s better to adopt the third amendment or quit job than to take support from Kanhaiya,” he said.
According to teachers present there, a group of faculty members started shouting slogans terming Kumar as “anti-national” and stopped him from addressing the gathering.
“Such slogans are unfortunate, more so coming from teachers, even if they don’t like him or are from different political ideology,” said J Khuntiya, chairman, Academic for Action and Development.
DU teachers have been boycotting the evaluation of undergraduate exams for last two weeks in protest against amendments to UGC regulations that, they argue, will lead to job-cuts to the tune of 50 per cent and drastically decrease pupil-teacher ratio in higher education.