Dr Rafi Ramzan Dar
Since the dawn of human civilisation, societies and nations have strived hard not only for their individual growth but also for their collective development. Whether we talk of physical, cultural, ideological, behavioral, intellectual,moral, ethical, political or socio-economic development, homo sapiens have always tried to work for the attainment of best possible standards of these aspects in a holistic manner.
We have seen slaves turning into masters, landless serfs becoming landlords, low income groups attaining higher incomes, small hamlets developing into model villages which inturn grow into urban agglomerations, metropolis and megapolis, idle spaces reshaping into departmental stores, warehouses and big malls, students growing into research scholars and subsequently teachers, under-trainees becoming bosses at companies and monarchies changing into democracies.
The driving force behind all these small and big struggles and various others not mentioned here is nothing but ones passion and what drives the instinct for generating that passion is a firm will to work hard with every passing day. The basic fact is that we don’t want to maintain statusquo. Rather, we want to grow, develop and prosper. At every subsequent stage, we want to see ourselves at better positions and posts in order to enjoy a dignified life. In nutshell, we want to embrace and work for a positive change. In case any of us ever thinks or works opposite to this fundamental belief, then he or she doesn’t understand the meaning of a life worth living.
However, in our part of the world, this dictum falls flat so far as the mechanism of higher education is concerned.In this department, not any ordinary or unlettered group of people but highly qualified scholars and intellectuals are made to dance by the men at the helm of affairs as per their whims in a regressive manner. The department of higher education of J&Khas a long history of disgracing the highly qualified youth through its defective and partial system. I am not blaming anybody but yes one must say spade a spade.
At the very outset, let me make it very clear that bureaucratic apathy has made this system lame as well as blind where every so called responsible officer seems to have taken a firm oath of crushing the intellectual class working as daily wages in various degree colleges in the length and breadth of UT. Whenever there is change/transfer of any office bearer, blame of defuncting the system is laid on the previous one. As a result of which the system has become myopic even to the basic issues of the contractual fraternity working under it.These ad-hoc teachers despite attaining highest academic credentials are treated as children of lesser God by making them to work at par with the permanent faculty but paying them lesser wages not even equivalent to their one-fourth part. In this way the system is not only doing injustice to these contractual teachers but also violating the norms of “equal work equal pay” in a deliberate manner.
This is such a unique system wherein a highly qualified pass-out from IIT’s, IIM’s and top research centres of the country gets lesser wages than what he/she gets through his JRF or SRF fellowships before his contractual employment. But when demands like this are put on the debating table,the concerned office bearers turn deaf ears despite knowing that contractual staff is the fulcrum and main pillar of academic mechanism.
Before 2018, these bread earners of thousands of families were named as college contractual lecturers. They were paid for the entire year despite at meagre rates of Rs 8000 per month. Thereafter, their winter break salaries of two months were deducted followed by summer break deductions. After 2018, their nomenclature was changed from contractual lecturers to Academic Arrangement lecturers followed by further degradation into “Need based Academic Arrangement lecturers” that too after giving the prime decades of their youth to this system. This nomenclature renders their teaching experiences useless outside the UT where the contractual lecturers are paid as per properly defined UGC norms for the entire year.
Since last year, the system has been so nice to their already fading careers and shrinking livelihoods that they have been asked for yearly CID and police verifications as if they get permanent employment every year. Alas! The system has laid no stone unturned in making them to move from pillar to post in disgrace that too after having immense potential and intellect to contribute to the system in various other remunerative ways.
On one hand, higher ups of the system are reducing their dignities and on the other hand their wages are reduced and now they have been ordered to work as guest lecturers at the rates of Rs 400 per lecture per day which accumulates up to 10-12,000 Rs per month. Does this brutal regression seem genuine in a progressive society like ours. Aren’t these highly qualified youth our own people whom we are exploiting? Don’t they belong to our society?. Don’t they have their families to feed and look after? Isn’t our system mentally collapsing their intellect and worth? Is this for which that they get enrolled themselves in top reputed institutes and put decades of hard work together to serve in their soil? Is this the concept of a welfare state in our part of the world?
Alas! The system seems busy only in saving state exchequer at the cost of ruining the peace as well as potential of its own intellectual class- a class of people who may contribute well but are unwilling to because of step motherly approach to them by a few myopic people seated at the top.
Under such a state of affairs, I remember Karl Mark when he said, “let all the workers of the world unite together, you have nothing to loose except your chains”. Day in and day out, the problems of substantial and justified wages pile up the frustrations of these under employed youth. It is ripe time for the concerned mechanism to wake up before any revolution takes birth to collapse the entire educational system like it did recently in Karnataka and various other states.
Let’s give collective progress and broad vision a chance to flourish. Let’s work for the betterment of all and let’s set the example of progressive development and make our educational system a role model of taking everybody on-board not only for ourselves but for others as well. Let’s redress their grievances before it is too late.
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