OPINION

The 18th of August is some sort of an 'anniversary' for me! I joined on faculty Kirori Mal College, DU, on 18th August 1969. So today I complete 51 years as a DU teacher, and today is my 52nd Anniversary as a teacher!

Do I see any changes in the DU system during the last 50 plus years? Yes, I do, but not necessarily a change for the better! Salaries no doubt have gone up almost 150 times, but so have tensions and frustrations for thousands of teachers in the University and its colleges.

When I joined KMC I was less than 22 years of age. I almost literally walked into the job. So did hundreds of others without struggle. The system then was to help young and meritorious students to join as teachers, not to put impediments. Also, teachers of my generation and of even 25years after had no problems in appointments and promotions. But today? Over 4500 teachers are working in ad hoc arrangements with uncertain future; face stagnation- no, not even a single, promotion for at least 3500 teachers for 11 years. No teacher has so far been promoted to Pay Band 4 in the Career Advancement Scheme recommended in the 6th UGC PRC!!

When I joined in Aug 1969 it was in the Assistant Lecturer scale basic of Rs 300 pm. Total salary slip: Rs.450. Today the initial salary at joining is Rs 80000. But as I mentioned manifold salary increase is at the cost of manifold increase in tensions and frustrations. Heart cries to see teachers - married with children, some 45+ years of age, still in ad hoc positions! And many don't have even ad hoc relief, they struggle for guests’ positions. And this is happening in DU, a premiere Central University with an IoE tag?

Former Union Minister Shatrughan Sinha and late film actor Sushant Singh Rajput worked in the same Mumbai film industry and also came from the same state of Bihar. The similarity ends here. While Sinha has had a very long innings and has closely identified with his roots winning the title of ‘Bihari Babu’, Rajput’s career pales in comparison. Actually, till his suicide made headlines, not very many would have known that the talented actor came from Bihar.

Bihar’s tryst with Mumbai film industry doesn’t start with Shatrughan Sinha, nor would it end with Sushant Singh Rajput. In fact, recently we heard of actor Kum Kum, a heartthrob of the 1950s and 60s, passing away. She too came from Bihar and that too from a landed gentry. Films are not only about actors, they are as much about directors, lyricists, music directors, editors, writers, dress designers, so on and so forth. The list of people from Bihar who made it good and enjoyed much bigger status than Rajput too is pretty long with Prakash Jha, Neeraj Pandey, Manoj Bajpai, Sanjai Mishra, Vinay Pathak, Pankaj Tripathi, music director Chitragupt and his sons Anand-Milind, lyricist Shailendra to name a few.

Before we take our discussion forward, let’s also remind ourselves that Mumbai Police of today do not have the same social composition which it had in the 1970s or may be till the early 1980s. Given the high success rate that students from Bihar have in the civil services examination, it should not surprise anybody that the top echelons Maharashtra Police has a fair Bihari presence. Similarly, the Bihari presence in bureaucracy and the crucial departments of income tax, central excise and customs, given that Mumbai is the financial Capital, too is substantial. In any social structure, there is the downward percolation of influence, and it goes without saying, and rightly so, that Bihari presence in Mumbai’s ruling oligarchy has helped many a migrant from the eastern state find a toehold in the city.

In the midst of the crisis caused by Coronavirus swamping the national Capital, an emerging human tragedy which has failed to find focus is the state of the 12 Delhi University college, which are funded by the Delhi government. There has been no disbursement of salary for the teachers and non-teaching staff of these colleges since the month of April this year.

These colleges are – Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, Mahrishi Valmiki B.Ed College, Maharaja Agrasen College, Shaheed Rajguru Women’s College, Deen Dayal Upadhyay College, Indira Gandhi College of Physical Education, Bhaskaracharya College, Acharya Narendra Dev Women’s College, Keshav Mahavidyalay, Bhagini Nivedita Women’s College and Aditi Women’s Mahavidyalaya.

In addition to the salary, there has been no encashment of the medical bills, pension bills and retirement benefits. The situation has arisen following the Delhi government going almost bankrupt in the midst of the Corona crisis. There are also reports of doctors working in Delhi government-run hospitals not being paid their salary.

While the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government has kept its poll promise of free power, free water and free bus travel but in the process lost its way on how to mobilise funds to pay salary to its employees. This situation in the 12-Delhi government funded colleges has created a caste system within Delhi University.

The spread of Covid-19 pandemic in India in the past three months has been variously described and compared. The most cited comparison has been the spread of Spanish Flu in 1918. It has been looked at largely from the lens of being a health issue. In doing so we miss a very pertinent point that the spread of pandemic in 1918 was in an India which was a colony and the counter led by a government which was colonial, not accountable to the dying masses.

Fast forward to 2020, we have elected governments at all the three levels – grassroots (panchayats/municipal bodies), states and the Centre. The model so far has been that the Centre has limited its role to being a nodal agency as far as prevention and containment at Ground Zero goes. It has allowed the state governments to variously draw their roadmaps suitable for implementation at the district level.

This model has so far worked and avoided any major friction between the Centre and even opposition-ruled state governments. The cheerleaders on both the sides though may not agree and keep creating cacophony on the various television channels.

Some have blamed the Centre of going for models of autonomy and delegation in an area where blame was likely to come its way and thus shirked from taking the overall responsibility. It would be incorrect to mention that Centre has shirked from its responsibility and has not effectively intervened where the crisis was perceived to be going out of hand of the state government.

Listen in the north, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind;

Tramp o’ Cossack hooves in front, grey great coats behind.

Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin’ kind ....

—Rudyard Kipling, Mutiny of the Mavericks

  Kipling’s words referred to the Russians at the frontier, it’s the Chinese today.

The Treaty of Westphalia 24 October 1648, involving no fewer than 194 states represented by 179 plenipotentiaries negotiating over a few years established the system of political order based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states including the inviolability of borders and non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. However, where the borders lay and resolution of conflicting claims persists till today.

The earliest recorded attempt at negotiating a boundary dispute is of 1222 AD when the English and the Scots set out to mark their kingdoms. That the negotiations failed and the negotiators narrowly escaped execution is another matter. A clearly defined, accurately depicted and accepted boundary being essential for exercising sovereignty within the nation state, the process starts with mutually accepted broad contours of where the boundary should generally lie and political agreement to refine and define it. The boundary is then subjected to ‘delineation’ which essentially implies drawing on the map where the boundary runs and finally ‘demarcation’ by identifying and marking on the ground with natural features, boundary pillars and so on. Where such an exercise is not considered critical, politically or economically, and both nation states find it expedient to let the ground reality prevail, the concept of ‘frontiers’ emerges wherein both states exercise control up to a general line leaving an opaque zone or buffer ensuring avoidance of confrontation or conflict. And finally boundaries can be defined by natural features like rivers, watersheds, prominent landmarks or artificially by latitude and longitude reference.