Teachers to court arrest on Sept 4
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, August 31 — The three-week old strike by university and college teachers took a new turn today with the striking teachers and the Union Human Resource Development Ministry hardening their respective stands.

The two sides blamed each other for politicising the issue with teachers deciding to go in for en masse court arrest on September 4 on the eve of Teachers' Day. They have also resolved to wear black badges on September 5 as a mark of protest.

Meanwhile, the student’s body of the ruling party, terming the strike as "irresponsible", asked the teachers to go back to their classrooms by September 6.

The HRD Minister, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, said "the teachers have been given their due," adding that he would not like to comment further on this issue.

The teachers have been offered the "best deal possible", an official release said, adding that the entire package, both the central as well as the state universities, would cost the central exchequer Rs 2300 crore during the current financial year.

The minister had earlier met delegation of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarathi Parishad, the student wing of the BJP, on the teachers issue.

The national general secretary of the ABVP, Mr Mahendra Pandey, following his meeting with the minister said "at any cost this strike must be withdrawn by September 5."

"After that we will not tolerate this irresponsible attitude for even a single day. Being an aware and responsible student’s organisation, the ABVP will take strong and effective steps to break this strike," he added.

The meeting between the ABVP and the minister has been criticised by the teachers federations — the All India Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organisation (AIFUCTO) and the Federation of Central University Teachers Association (FEDCUTA) — as an attempt to politicise the issue.

The general secretary of AIFUCTO, Prof. Mrinmoy Bhattacharyya, while deploring the move by the minister to end the strike using the student community urged the students "not to enter the fray either for or against the strike."

Stating that the minister was "playing a dangerous game", he said any move by the student community to intervene on behalf of the minister would have "far-reaching consequences."

The National Students Union of India is planning to hold a dharna tomorrow urging the government to resolve the deadlock at the earliest and resumption of the academic session.

The minister had earlier accused the teachers’ organisation, dominated by those affiliated with Left parties, of shadow-boxing the BJP government.

Sources close to the HRD Minister said the teachers were not leaving any scope for negotiation ever since Dr Joshi took over as the minister.

The minister had taken up the matter twice to the Cabinet for restoring parity with the class A employees in the central government services. The teachers having got that should have allowed the minister sometime to improve their lot, sources added.

A member of FEDCUTA, Prof Ananda Kumar, accused the HRD Minister of adopting an attitude of benign neglect and politicising the issue. He expressed the hope that there was still time to resolve the issue and added that "our demands are much older than the BJP government."

The Congress and the BJP urged the HRD Minister to find a way out to end the strike. The Congress spokesperson, while urging the minister to find an early settlement to the demands of the teachers, remarked the strike had taken place despite Dr Joshi himself being a teacher.

The BJP vice-president, Mr K.L. Sharma, also expressed the hope that the issue would be resolved amicably.

Meanwhile, a petition filed by the ABVP urging the teachers to withdraw the strike as it was affecting their academic session would come up for hearing on September 2.

While FEDCUTA and AIFUCTO have declined to intervene, individual teachers have decided to intervene in the case.

The worst affected in the tussle between the HRD Ministry and the university teachers are the students. The classes have remained suspended in almost all colleges since the beginning of this academic session.

With student union elections scheduled to be held in most of the universities in the country in September and the autumn vacations starting in October, many fear the teachers may not be able to complete their courses in time.

However, the teachers have allayed the fears of the students by assuring them that extra classes would be taken once the issue is resolved.