LETTERS

Issn 0012-9976
Ever since the first issue in 1966,
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Editor: Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

OBC Reservations for

Faculty Denied

awaharlal Nehru had observed, A

University stands for the adventure
of ideas and for the search of truth.
However, if the very university named
after Nehru (the Jawaharlal Nehru
UniversityJNU) is not allowed to let
voices from different sections/categories,
including the faculty, be heard then the
adventures of ideas and the search of
truth will exclude many voices from
Bharat or India. On 8 December 2015,
in reply to a right to information (RTI)
query, the JNU authorities had categorically stated that it has only 29 faculty
members at the level of assistant professor who are from the Other Backward
Classes (OBC) out of the total of 600-odd
teachers.
The RTI reply also said that there are
no faculty members from the OBC category at the associate or professor levels
at JNU. As per the reservation policy of
the Government of India, 27% (OBC)
posts must be reserved at each cadre
level (that is, assistant professors; associate professors and professors). Exemptions from these can be made only for
certain scientific and technical positions and only after taking prior approval of the concerned ministry (DoPT OM
No 36012/27/94, 13 May 1994). The OBC
reservation (at all levels of teaching
positions) is implemented in premier
institutions of higher learning such as
the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a few central universities and
the Union Public Service Commission,
among others.
The Ministry of Human Resource
Development (MHRD) had also specifically
(via F No16-8/200-TSI, 9 June 2008)
directed all the IITs (Indian Institutes of
Technology) to implement reservations for
the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes
(SCs/STs) and the OBC with immediate
effect. The order stated that reservation
of 15%, 7% and 27% for SCs, STs and OBCs
shall apply in full, including for the post
of associate professors and professors.
Even the Parliamentary Committee on
measures undertaken to secure representation of OBCs and for their welfare in

universities and other higher educational/

technical institutions had observed the
following: On the issue of reservation
of OBCs in the university faculty, the
committee expressed deep concern at
the gross violation of the Government
of India orders. According to the information furnished to it, as on 31 March
2015, there was a backlog of 50 OBC
vacancies at the Visva Bharati, 45 at the
Dr Hari Singh Gour University, 44
at the Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya,
34 at the Pondicherry University, 33 at
the Tezpur University, and 32 each at
the Assam University, the University of
Delhi and the University of Allahabad.
The situation is disturbing in other
Universities also and still worse in a
number of technical institutions, the
committee held.
Despite all these directions and guidelines from the MHRD and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT),
the University Grants Commission (UGC)
is not directing the central universities
to implement the OBC reservations. In
many of these universities, the OBC reservations are being implemented only at
the entry level, that is, assistant professor. The UGC had issued directions in
2016 to central universities that reservation for OBCs is to be implemented at the
entry level only. The recent advertisement of recruitment dated 26 February
2016 for teaching posts at the Central
University of Gujarat stated that there
would be no reservation for OBCs at
Associate and Professor Levels. How
can institutions getting funds from the
government have two different sets of
reservation policies?
Sony Kunjappan
Central University of Gujarat

Development and
Discrimination

n the dominant paradigm of development, the story of development is dissociated from the story of nationalism.
The proponents of Gujarat model of
development are silent about the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. In
his book, Development and Nationhood:
Essays in the Political Economy of South

april 9, 2016

vol lI no 15

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly

LETTERS

Asia (2005), Meghnad Desai incorporated

an essay written in the early 1990s, in
which he predicted what is happening
today. To put it in his own words: Whatever its virtues, territoriality has limited
emotional hold except in times of invasion. There remains a strong current
which would like to construct nationality
on the lines of Hindu religion.
In fact, there is no conflict between the
neo-liberal paradigm of development and
the agenda of Hindu nationalism. In his
tenure as the Chief Minister of Gujarat,
Narendra Modi ensured strong support
from the big business houses and marketed
the idea of Vibrant Gujarat. The Modistyle of politics depoliticized local-level
issues, problems and protests. In the
wake of the 2002 carnage, segregation of
living spaces between the religious communities became sharper in Gujarat.
The all-Muslim ghetto of Juhapura
in Ahmedabad tells that story. It was
reported in the media that the Hindus
moved out of Juhapura in 2002 and the
ruling party/state abandoned the area.
The outcome was as follows: There is
no proper drainage or street lighting in
Juhapura. Across the border, from where
the Hindu locality of Vejalpur begins,
are the sodium lights, the wide road, the
overbridge and water supply.
Now, after the passing of the Aadhaar
Bill, other than the possibility of mass
surveillance, the chances of more nuanced
discrimination between the majority and
minority communities in delivering welfare benefits become more pronounced.

has raised a very important question

Why does the government not have a
rehabilitation policy in place for the
rehabilitation of those who are wrongly
sent to jail?
The EPW too carried an article on this
issue (Condition of Undertrials in India
by Murli Karnam and Trijeeb Nanda,
26 March 2016) which gives a good
account of the countrywide problem.
This is a question which is very relevant for the central government, the
state governments as well as for the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court.
Enormous distress is being caused to
thousands of innocent persons and no
less to their family members due to their
unjustified imprisonment. Another recent
example is the imprisonment of a very
large number of Maruti Suzuki workers
of Haryana. In most such cases, the
imprisoned workers are from relatively
weaker sections and their families become heavily indebted and may even
face financial ruin in the course of their
efforts to obtain justice.
Several well coordinated steps should
be taken with a sense of urgency to
ensure that as soon as evidence becomes
available about the innocence of a jailed
person immediate steps are taken not
only for the release of the prisoner but
also for providing suitable compensation, help and rehabilitation package
keeping in view the sufferings and injustice inflicted on the person.
Bharat Dogra
NEW DELHI

Arup Kumar Sen

Kolkata

Response from AoL

Wrongly Jailed Persons

ue to several complex factors, the

number of innocent or almost innocent persons who are sent to jail and even
spend quite a long time there is known
to be very high in India. Mohammad
Aamir Khan is one such person. At the
age of 18 he was arrested by Delhi Police
on charges of terrorism. In 2012, the court
acquitted him in 17 out of 19 charges but
before this he had already spent 14 years
of his youth in jail.
In a recent interview published in the
Times of India (30 March 2016), Khan
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

april 9, 2016

n his article Dance of the Devils

published on 2 April 2016, Anand
Teltumbde has gone to extraordinary
lengths to hit out at Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
and the Art of Living (AoL) in the context of
the recently held World Culture Festival
(WCF) in Delhi to which we would like
to respond.

He begins by saying that the event

was in blatant violation of the law
and defiance of NGT [National Green Tribunal] and then contradicts himself
saying authorities erred in acceding to
the organisers demand. The organisation
was given full permission by the Delhi
Development Authority to host the event
and there was no demand; permission
was sought routinely.
His claim that AoL ignored the demand
by NGT to pay `120 crore as reparation
is incorrect. NGT did not step back
lowering reparations to `5 crore. Sri Sri
did not threaten to go to jail; he simply
said that he would rather go to jail than
pay a fine for having done nothing
wrong. It was then clarified that the `5
crore was an environmental compensation and not a fine.
He refers to the army building two
pontoon bridges for essentially a private
gathering as ominous. Yet WCF was a
public event. Secondly, as he himself
quotes, the Regulation for Army Para
301, Page 100 permits civil authorities
to call on the armed forces for assistance not just in exigencies but in any
other situation.
His next contention is about AoL being
a commercial organisation marketing
spiritual products made out of the raw
material of Hinduism and the mela, an
event to showcase Hinduism. AoL is a
global humanitarian, educational organisation with a presence in 155 countries. It
spends approximately 90% of its inflows
on service projects.
As for WCF being used to showcase
Hinduism, Teltumbde does not take into
account that it was the largest public
multicultural gathering the world has
witnessed. If anything the event showed
that unity is possible in diversity, a
step in bringing us closer to the ancient
ideal of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam or one
world one family.
Karthik Krishna
Art of Living

Web Exclusives
The following article has been published in the past week in the Web Exclusives section of the EPW website.
It has not been published in the print edition.
What Murdered the Mixed-Race Jarawa Baby?Ajay Saini
Articles posted before 2 April 2016 remain available in the Web Exclusives section.

vol lI no 15

LETTERS

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Economic & Political Weekly
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Economic & Political Weekly

320-321, A to Z Industrial Estate
Ganpatrao Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013, India
Email: edit@epw.in, epw.mumbai@gmail.com

april 9, 2016

vol lI no 15

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly