Delhi University Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh’s position has come under growing threat. On March 19, the Ministry of Human Resource Development served him a notice to show cause why he should not be removed for implementing a four-year undergraduate programme in 2013 while keeping the ministry “in the dark”. This is the first time such a notice has been sent to a vice chancellor of the 93-year-old university.
At the same time, with the new academic session set to begin in three months, protests seeking Singh’s resignation have grown stronger. Everyone including students, teachers, activists and even parliamentarians are voicing dissatisfaction against Singh’s administration, particularly its “hurried implementation” of the four-year undergraduate programme. Their agitations have been fuelled by allegations of financial irregularities.
On Friday, over a dozen students – including two office bearers of the Delhi University Students’ Union – were injured as the Delhi police lathi-charged and used water cannons on more than 2,000 protesters gathered outside the vice chancellor’s office to demand his resignation. Called the DU Bachao Maharally, it was led by members of DUSU and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
“The VC hasn’t done a positive thing in his tenure,” said Rohit Chahal, a member of the national executive council of ABVP. “Not a single new college has come up in the last 17 years and there has already been too much damage to education in the form of FYUP. We can’t let this continue.”
Singh and the Union government had clashed last year over plans to convert the three-year undergraduate degree at the university to a four-year course. The vice chancellor moved on the conversion despite opposition from faculty associations. Eventually, though, he had to relent, and the four-year programme was abandoned.
Student unions united
Besides Singh’s resignation, the ABVP has demanded the university to implement eight other demands. These include new hostels and “justice for more than 6,000 students” who enrolled in the BTech course that was launched “without required approvals from the All India Council of Technical Education”.
The protest has united students unions of all political hues. “The VC played with students’ future,” said Sunny Kumar, Delhi state vice president of the Left-leaning All India Students’ Association. “Again and again, he has targeted people who raised their voice against him, and has acted against people who went on strikes. The services of two Hindu College teachers were terminated over a small tussle and efforts made to silence them.” The association wants to distribute over 1 lakh pamphlets to expand its campaign against Singh.
Spelling further trouble for Singh, the Students Federation of India last week urged the Human Resource Development ministry to dismiss him for alleged “financial irregularities and taking autocratic decisions”. The federation’s general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Ritabrata Banerjee wrote to minister Smriti Irani, urging her to “sack this VC for the unpardonable harm done to public education”.
In the letter, Banerjee accused Singh of “diverting Rs 172.56 crore out of an OBC (Other Backward Classes) grant meant for expansion in teaching faculty and general upgrade of infrastructure towards purchase of laptops for the batch of FYUP (four-year undergraduate programme) students”.
Scroll’s email to the vice chancellor requesting comment went unanswered.
Teachers' protest
Starting Monday, the Delhi University Teachers’ Association plans to hold agitations over three days to highlight “academic fraud, illegalities and financial irregularities, and repressive governance” in the varsity.
“Since January 2014, we have been demanding an end to this authoritarian regime,” DUTA President Nandita Narain alleged. “He forced FYUP on students when the semester system had already disrupted education in the university and then went on to embezzle funds and divert them for his own schemes like free laptops and Gyanodaya express [an educational train journey organised for students in the university].”
Narain accused Singh of bypassing laws and statutory bodies to impose his ideas and systems. “No permission was obtained from the AICTE for the engineering course that the university launched, which left students in the lurch,” she said. “Not only this, the VC has done away with the confidentiality of details about students in the exam answer sheets as their roll numbers and college names are pretty much written on the first sheet.”
Narain said the three-day public meetings are aimed at increasing pressure on the ministry to get rid of Singh. “He needs to go along with his sycophants, only a handful of people in the whole university still support him,” she said.
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At the same time, with the new academic session set to begin in three months, protests seeking Singh’s resignation have grown stronger. Everyone including students, teachers, activists and even parliamentarians are voicing dissatisfaction against Singh’s administration, particularly its “hurried implementation” of the four-year undergraduate programme. Their agitations have been fuelled by allegations of financial irregularities.
On Friday, over a dozen students – including two office bearers of the Delhi University Students’ Union – were injured as the Delhi police lathi-charged and used water cannons on more than 2,000 protesters gathered outside the vice chancellor’s office to demand his resignation. Called the DU Bachao Maharally, it was led by members of DUSU and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
“The VC hasn’t done a positive thing in his tenure,” said Rohit Chahal, a member of the national executive council of ABVP. “Not a single new college has come up in the last 17 years and there has already been too much damage to education in the form of FYUP. We can’t let this continue.”
Singh and the Union government had clashed last year over plans to convert the three-year undergraduate degree at the university to a four-year course. The vice chancellor moved on the conversion despite opposition from faculty associations. Eventually, though, he had to relent, and the four-year programme was abandoned.
Student unions united
Besides Singh’s resignation, the ABVP has demanded the university to implement eight other demands. These include new hostels and “justice for more than 6,000 students” who enrolled in the BTech course that was launched “without required approvals from the All India Council of Technical Education”.
The protest has united students unions of all political hues. “The VC played with students’ future,” said Sunny Kumar, Delhi state vice president of the Left-leaning All India Students’ Association. “Again and again, he has targeted people who raised their voice against him, and has acted against people who went on strikes. The services of two Hindu College teachers were terminated over a small tussle and efforts made to silence them.” The association wants to distribute over 1 lakh pamphlets to expand its campaign against Singh.
Spelling further trouble for Singh, the Students Federation of India last week urged the Human Resource Development ministry to dismiss him for alleged “financial irregularities and taking autocratic decisions”. The federation’s general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Ritabrata Banerjee wrote to minister Smriti Irani, urging her to “sack this VC for the unpardonable harm done to public education”.
In the letter, Banerjee accused Singh of “diverting Rs 172.56 crore out of an OBC (Other Backward Classes) grant meant for expansion in teaching faculty and general upgrade of infrastructure towards purchase of laptops for the batch of FYUP (four-year undergraduate programme) students”.
Scroll’s email to the vice chancellor requesting comment went unanswered.
Teachers' protest
Starting Monday, the Delhi University Teachers’ Association plans to hold agitations over three days to highlight “academic fraud, illegalities and financial irregularities, and repressive governance” in the varsity.
“Since January 2014, we have been demanding an end to this authoritarian regime,” DUTA President Nandita Narain alleged. “He forced FYUP on students when the semester system had already disrupted education in the university and then went on to embezzle funds and divert them for his own schemes like free laptops and Gyanodaya express [an educational train journey organised for students in the university].”
Narain accused Singh of bypassing laws and statutory bodies to impose his ideas and systems. “No permission was obtained from the AICTE for the engineering course that the university launched, which left students in the lurch,” she said. “Not only this, the VC has done away with the confidentiality of details about students in the exam answer sheets as their roll numbers and college names are pretty much written on the first sheet.”
Narain said the three-day public meetings are aimed at increasing pressure on the ministry to get rid of Singh. “He needs to go along with his sycophants, only a handful of people in the whole university still support him,” she said.
