The clampdown at Jawaharlal Nehru University continues as attendance has become an issue not only for students, but for teachers, too. The faculty is now battling an unusual problem—permission to go on leave.
Invited by the Think Fest in Lahore to speak about his new book, The Line of Control, Happymon Jacob, associate professor at School of International Studies, thought the biggest hurdle for him is to get the Pakistan visa. He never expected that the roadblock would come in the form of his own university as his leave came with conditions including political clearance from the ministry of external affairs.
“Leave sanction came with conditionalities that were near impossible,” said Jacob. “I was asked to get a political clearance from the ministry of external affairs and an FCRA clearance from the home ministry. This is the first time that I have heard of this. Scholars have travelled to Pakistan before. No one has ever been asked for it.''
As both the clearances were not easy, and require a considerable time, Jacob chose not to attend the event.
Recently, the dean of Arts and Aesthetics School, Kavita Singh, was denied leave to go to Bengaluru to receive the prestigious Infosys Award. Singh, however, did attend the function.
“I had applied for casual leave which I thought was my right,” said Singh who has found herself often denied leave. “My family was also travelling to Bengaluru for this, so I wanted to take no chances. I reached (Bengaluru) and checked my email to find that I had been denied casual leave, too,” she said.
However, the administration has subsequently stated that the denial of leave was a clerical error and they further required a clarification on the leave request. Singh said that there was a “comment'' section in which she was asked for details.
Earlier her application for leave for a fellowship was denied and the application for two days duty leave to attend a conference at the India International Centre in December also met with the same fate.
Singh had publicly opposed the compulsory attendance for students in the form suggested by the administration.
Attendance woes were not restricted to Singh and Jacob. Another professor was also denied permission to travel to Mexico because the administration wanted details of his attendance.
The attendance of teachers, which is maintained now in a register that is signed daily, has become a prickly issue. In the recent past, the confrontation between the JNU administration and the faculty has only amplified. With the environment in the university being “claustrophobic”, as one veteran professor calls it, there is a feeling—shared by many professors—that this is part of the attempt by the government to slowly turn the university saffron.
