M A I L B A G

Suspension for minor lapse objectionable

THIS refers to the report on suspension of a professor at Punjabi University for an ordinary “lapse” of “disobeying the orders” during his tenure as Registrar. This kind of an attitude on the part of the Vice-Chancellor is highly objectionable and an insult to the sacred institution of professorship.

I vividly remember that as the Head of the Department of English I did not “obey” the orders of the then much liberated and enlightened Vice-Chancellor in regard to a certain situation. Later, the Vice-Chancellor wisely told me that his orders were not “the Bible, they can be challenged and argued.”

A university teacher is not just an ordinary mind to be “enslaved” and used for carrying out the orders that encourage favouritism, corruption-generating sycophancy, fear psychosis, contradictions, downright prejudicial politics which makes a university a prison house where there is no longer any role for the values of genuine academic environment or for working in freedom.

Unfortunately, today we have Vice-Chancellors (particularly at most regional universities) who are unacademic, unsound, politician-made and lack the ability (because of their parochial vision and cunning imagination) to perceive the essential distinction between “what it is to be the leader” of a university and the dictates of one's own benefits and prejudices.

Dr B. L. CHAKOO, GND University, Amritsar

Speed up justice

The editorial “Slow pace of justice” (Nov 13) examines the Supreme Court’s guidelines on reducing the number of unnecessary witnesses in criminal cases so as to ensure speedy dispensation of justice and laying special emphasis on earnest implementation of the same. There is need to check delays and speed up the pace of justice so that the people’s faith in the judiciary can be restored. As it is, the wheels of the judiciary move at an incredibly slow pace. The plight of litigants reeling under the rickety set-up is to be experienced to be believed and properly appreciated.

Bluntly speaking, there has been no dearth of recommendations and guidelines to improve matters in the past. But alas, without any tangible outcome. In fact, over the years, the situation has increasingly worsened.

TARA CHAND, Ambota (Una)

Immigration problem

I believe an Indian should have the freedom to settle anywhere in India. Mass immigrations from Bihar to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are, however, a different matter and need consideration.

Punjabis and Himachalis do not want to till their own land, harvest their crops or work at the construction sites as labourers. They will be happy to work as peons and daily-paid beldars under the government. Industrialists and contractors do not recruit locals because young boys and girls of these states, assured as they are of bread and roof, are shirkers. So the people of these states engage Biharis for agricultural and construction works. The result: voluntary unemployment among the youth of these two states which is the worst type of joblessness because it springs from a tendency towards idleness.

As for the migrants, they are dazzled at the inflow of cash that every member of the family starts earning the moment the family arrives here. They and their relatives produce more children because the more the hands, the more the income. The country is getting overpopulated with people who have been “dalits” irrespective of the castes they belong to. Even the skilled ones — they earn handsome wages — are not aiming better in the matter of matrimony or claiming the benefit of better genes and environment.

Regional disparities account for these migrations and the Central government is shirking its responsibility by not dealing effectively with the governments that are bankrupt administratively and financially.

L.R. SHARMA, Jalandhar

Free and fair polls

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is an astute politician. His narrow escape in the bomb blast was a divine miracle. Riding on the wave of sympathy, he got the State Assembly dissolved and recommended early elections to the State Assembly. But his plan seems to have gone awry as Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh has remarked, “A quick election is not his priority, a proper election is.” Mr Lyngdoh is not influenced by the logic of students’ examination in March to accept Mr Naidu’s holding the elections in February.

It is a good sign for a democracy that a constitutional machinery like the Election Commission does not yield to political pulls and pressures. Free and fair elections are its sterling features whereas unhealthy threats and the use of intemperate language by leaders of all hues their bane.

The Indian democracy will flourish if top leaders understand the spirit of democracy and abhor the idea of remaining caretaker Chief Minister during elections. As a tribute to democracy, they must resign and abdicate positions to influence the elections. Let the Chief Election Commissioner hold elections under President’s rule.

UJJAL PAL SINGH, Faridabad