NUJS Kolkata vice chancellor (VC) Prof Ishwara Bhat, who has been impeded since last week from joining CNLU Patna as VC by protesting CNLU students, is now facing an ultimatum by the NUJS student body to resign from NUJS this week.
NUJS students vowed to ensure the appointment of a “suitable” VC when they met yesterday night in the NUJS Student Juridical Association’s (SJA) general body meeting, according to the SJA’s press statement published hosted on the SJA subdomain of the nujs.edu website.
We have sent Bhat a message seeking comment.
According to the statement, which follows the revelation on Saturday of the erstwhile buried report of NUJS’ first ever review commission:
The report shows he is [...], nepotistic, undemocratic and despotic, incapable, and incompetent. Our lived experiences show how several of us have been victims of his blatant casteism and continued inaction against sexual harassment. The hallmarks of his tenure have been three no-confidence motions, stagnation and regression of academic culture, evasiveness and shirking responsibility, destruction of all meaningful engagement with stakeholders and deliberate repression of their voices. His selfishness and indifference towards the institution is exhibited by his years of efforts to delay the constitution of the long-overdue review commission and his attempt to again evade responsibility by seeking appointment at CNLU (Patna) on receipt of the report from the Hon’ble Chancellor.
and that:
Resultantly, we demand Prof. Bhat’s resignation on grounds of his proven incapacity and moral culpability by 9.00 AM on March 28, 2018 (Wednesday).
To push this demand, NUJS students have gone on a “passive” protest starting today, during which they will attend classes and engage with faculty on their views about the report. But the SJA adds in the statement:
In the highly likely scenario that he does not resign by the stipulated deadline, our protest shall become more active and vigorous.
However, under no circumstances, shall we be compromising on our academic integrity. To that end, we will be appearing for our mid-semester tests, submitting our project papers and requesting faculty to reschedule our classes so as to not jeopardise our constitutional and educational rights.
In course of our protest, we shall not be obstructing the right to work of any faculty or staff member.
Anonymous students created a Facebook page for the protests on Friday, under the name “NUJS Speaks” and has been updating it with posts about “irredeemable administrative inefficiency” and protest pictures under the handle #Notmyvc since then.
Full NUJS SJA press statement, via SJA official website:
Notice: Because You Never Did
When the law school project was founded, it was envisaged to standardise legal education and nurture a generation of social engineers. A proud constituent of this project, NUJS was established to stand for uncompromising integrity, core constitutional values, excellence, innovation and opportunity.
To act as a mirror to this institution, a review commission is mandated every five years. Yet, this right was denied to our institution for over thirteen years. It is a testament to half a decade of our struggle that gaining access to the first-ever, statutorily mandated review of a public university was considered a success in itself. As we flipped through the report, we saw the rise and the subsequent downfall. The report depicts the abject failure of this institution to uphold its core values in the recent years under the tenure of the incumbent Vice Chancellor, Prof. (Dr.) P. Ishwara Bhat.
Prof. Bhat’s tenure utterly betrays all of our shared values. The report shows he is [...], nepotistic, undemocratic and despotic, incapable, and incompetent. Our lived experiences show how several of us have been victims of his blatant casteism and continued inaction against sexual harassment. The hallmarks of his tenure have been three no-confidence motions, stagnation and regression of academic culture, evasiveness and shirking responsibility, destruction of all meaningful engagement with stakeholders and deliberate repression of their voices. His selfishness and indifference towards the institution is exhibited by his years of efforts to delay the constitution of the long-overdue review commission and his attempt to again evade responsibility by seeking appointment at CNLU (Patna) on receipt of the report from the Hon’ble Chancellor. Unsurprisingly, NUJS suffers from large scale mismanagement and administrative failure today.
The recent protests and unrest at NUSRL (Ranchi), RMLNLU (Lucknow), NLIU (Bhopal), and CNLU (Patna) point to a larger systematic problem in the structure and working of National Law Universities – lack of accountability owing to their highly centralised nature. Despite reaching out to Executive Council and past Chancellors over the last few years, we have been unable to ascertain accountability in this broken system. Eternal vigilance has proven to be the price of our liberty. Having exhausted all institutional remedies, it has become imperative for us, the students, to fill the lacuna created due to the absence of an effective accountability mechanism.
Last night, an overwhelming majority of the Student Juridical Association in its General Body meeting vowed to ensure the appointment of a suitable Vice Chancellor. Neither can Prof. Bhat rectify his colossal failure nor give back our seven years of lost opportunities. Resultantly, we demand Prof. Bhat’s resignation on grounds of his proven incapacity and moral culpability by 9.00 AM on March 28, 2018 (Wednesday).
Despite having little hope given our experience with him so far, our plan of action shall be to initially mark our protest passively. We will be attending classes and engaging with faculty about their views on the report starting today.
In the highly likely scenario that he does not resign by the stipulated deadline, our protest shall become more active and vigorous. However, under no circumstances, shall we be compromising on our academic integrity. To that end, we will be appearing for our mid-semester tests, submitting our project papers and requesting faculty to reschedule our classes so as to not jeopardise our constitutional and educational rights. In course of our protest, we shall not be obstructing the right to work of any faculty or staff member.
Simultaneously, we shall be reaching out to all our Executive Council members and our Hon’ble Chancellor who had been waiting for the report to fix accountability and remedy the situation.
In these testing times, we look forward to support for our cause.
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Not saying that anything the SJA says is nonsense, but media is also supposed to act as a gatekeeper to keep the debate factual, and I don't think you can accuse us of having treated student interests in this unfairly so far...
Including or not including the C word is a judgment call, in this case, but I don't think it makes a major difference to the argument or facts if it's missing, if it seeks to describe moral corruption or general dishonesty.
But by all means, do feel free to share actual instances or examples of general dishonesty or moral corruption, and we'll be happy to reconsider.
Precisely. I want PIB out as anyone else, but journalistic ethics are important.
In spite of the High Court's recommendations for a CAG audit of the University and CID inquiry against other members of the administration, no action has been taken by him. When it comes to matters of corruption (or sexual harassment as the students have pointed out in their petition), non-action or neutrality are as good as being a complicit.
Do you know where can I find a list of conferences that NUJS has received funding for and how many have actually happened?
Technically we are legally liable for whatever we print, even if we only attribute it to someone else. There's possibly some exception for things that are said in court, and also if we have given the opportunity to the subject of the allegation to respond.
And while Bhat has been given that opportunity here, he's historically been terrible at exercising this and right now I haven't seen any overt reference of corruption, so I'd prefer to play it a bit safer and avoid the hyperbole on that front (with the C word having initially already been embraced a bit too enthusiastically at CNLU, for instance www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/nujs-vc-ishwara-bhat-causes-campus-lockdown-at-cnlu-even-before-taking-seat-as-its-vc-00011130-9173 ).
Why don't you just ask the actual stakeholders if you are so unsure?
Whether that led to a delay of a few years? Certainly. But that also shows the absolute maturity and patience of the NUJS students. In such circumstances, the burden of morality on the Vice Chancellor to resign becomes unconditional.
However, I want to have a discussion with the members of the student body regarding one thing - what happens if Bhat is no longer the NUJS VC? I know you will come back with something along the lines of "bro, NUJS will be great again!". I do understand why you might feel that way, you might feel that changing the person at the helm might be a good start to making changes to the institution.
But one thing I feel needs to come in a discussion where one person is being made responsible for everything wrong in an institution is whether removing him is the end-all solution it is portrayed as. If you look around the world, you will see that every administration that has ever graced this earth has faced backlash from the people around it. You look at Obama or Manmohan Singh or even Mahatma Gandhi, who is called an anti-national in some corners. People had problems with them because they felt they were not doing enough. Indeed, even NUJS students have grievances against their student representatives for various reasons. It is futile to expect an administration to create a perfect world because that kind of a world does not exist.
I know that the NUJS student body is full of bright, motivated and intelligent students. I would request them to pause for a minute and ponder whether Bhat should really be talked about as the villain he is mercilessly portrayed as.
We are not forgetting the fact that our institution still does not have basic things like a proper sexual harassment code or an effective scholarship policy. But what we are saying, is that we have tried to initiate all these reforms (when it's not our job in the first place) but have been met with delaying tactics and action paralysis from the current VC.
Does Bhat's resignation mean a magic wand moment where all our problems are solved? Certainly not. But as a first step, it at least gives a better working environment where we can sit down and actually DO something about our problems, than just fighting for representation to appropriate forums.
PS: With regards to appropriate forums, the SJA has also been simultaneously reaching out to the members of the Executive Council (on whom Bhat pins the entire burden of implementing the report) with an actual long term plan. [The reason this protest hasn't been ccentered around a the set of particular demands is because we have done that enough already in three no-confidence motions. Each time Bhat has aquiesced to them and done nothing about them for years. It is simply no longer possible to work with him and even hope for the implementation of the generous recommendations of the URC report, when we haven't been to secure our basic survival and educational rights from him after 7 years. This protest is not about Bhat. It is about 7 years of our lost opportunities which he can never restore. It is about working towards our future, one in which he has lost the legitimacy to be a part of.]
P
But again, remember, if you want a VC who holds the same views as you do, that is going to be a tough task. Any new VC may pose a completely different set of problems compared to what Bhat does.
I wish you all the best in your aims of bettering your University. But do try to still have a working relationship with Bhat if he is in charge even after the protests. In my experience, people often do things for you if you have made the effort to understand them and make them feel wanted.
One of the reasons I feel Bhat and many other teachers in NUJS shy away from taking decisions is because of the sanctimonious bad-mouthing that follows most decisions. Please try to make things happen in a manner that would make Bhat feel good about himself and you just might get proposals through even if it takes time.
I know your intentions are good and I hope you can make this institution into what you want it to be.
But do you know what happened when I read your comment? I felt like not interacting with you at all because you were trying to make me look small through phrases like "your arguments would have made more sense", and "are we their nannies?". And I know your response is going to be "we don't care what you feel, stop being a pussy and start saying our demands are legitimate."
I am already saying your demands are legitimate. But a bit of consideration and understanding never hurt the world.
"And I know your response is going to be "we don't care what you feel, stop being a pussy and start saying our demands are legitimate." - Again with the presumption, pal. Maybe if you stop making those, you can actually understand how the students feel when you talk to them, instead of simply claiming you can.
Students aren't saying this is the best way to change things. It's simply the only viable way left before them, after having tried everything else. If you have better options in mind, why not actually implement them for a change? (you distinctly sound like an insider faculty member/admin and assuming you are in a position to change anything) At least students are talking and acting at the same time. What has the faculty members done in all these years to actually stop Bhat and his tyranny? I agree some have tried to make things better for the students and the institution in general in their own way, but that's not simply enough.
My basic idea is this - if we stop pointing fingers at people, then the world would be a better place to live in. My comments on the protests against Bhat were based on this idea.
All said, you are right in wanting change. I only wanted a change in the mode of expression of that change but it's fine if you believe in the mode you have chosen.
Your "basic idea" sounds so similar to "I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school... I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy". Guess what? That phase has been done and dusted.
I have been one of the unfortunate batches to suffer under this crummy PIB. So either you have no idea what you're talking about or you just want to further pro-PIB propaganda!
Here is what what happened:
1. On Bar & Bench a pro-Bhat comment was posted by someone giving the impression of being an insider: barandbench.com/shwara-bhat-vice-chancellor-cnlu-patna/
2. Who is this person? An recent graduate of ILS Pune:
in.linkedin.com/in/sanam-kabre-94836810b
3. Now, look at the Quora comment. The language is identical. So either he wrote it or someone plagiarised his comment.
www.quora.com/Is-it-a-good-thing-for-CNLU-that-they-are-getting-NUJS-VC-Ishwara-Bhat-Is-he-actually-as-bad-as-Legally-India-articles-portray-him-to-be
So the question is: why is an ILS Pune grad being allowed to comment like this on Quora and why is Kian quoting him?
I do not deny that a few genuine insiders have been posting pro-Bhat comments (probably his supporters in the faculty). But do not believe the Quora comment. It is a classic example of FAKE NEWS.
www.telegraphindia.com/calcutta/moral-policing-rap-on-nujs-218724
Also disappointed at the Bar & Bench headline saying the report felt NUJS was at a "fork in the road". The main observations were on misgovernance, faculty, infra etc.
www.livemint.com/Education/8BgxNXC5KMBGZgTijnNtVI/IIMAhmedabad-raises-PG-management-program-fee-to-Rs22-lakh.html
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T T Ghosh
www.livelaw.in/nujs-students-demand-vcs-resignation-review-commission-report-reveals-maladministration-read-report/
I still have not seen smoking gun proof of corruption, and until and unless we do, I'd rather be careful with use of that word.
:D
Several former researchers of that particular center left their job getting frustrated and some are preparing to leave. Even now some newly recruited researchers of that center are continuously writing for Bhat prominently one specialized in constitutional law. The research fellow of that center belongs to the same clan of Bhat and thus another post of fellow were never filled up to maintain his supremacy.
Some relative of a judge is also empoyed in that particular chair on a part time basis having the tendency of not attending office at all. The professor of the chair is also a person from Bhat's state who is literally an unknown alien to nujs. This is how money sent by the state government is utilized by Bhat for his own publications, keeping personal relationship with powerful people and sometimes more.
Aren't these corruption from the part of Bhat? As an academic, it's the most dangerous kind of corruption I believe. The center is called crsgpp and the chair is amc. Go and ask.
We are going to expose the Mafia in the coming days. Just wait...
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hubballi/KSLU-VC-will-be-appointed-soon/articleshow/54475828.cms
WHAT NOW ??!!!
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