By Mahmood Asim, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: In response to the Modi government’s call to celebrate ‘Good Governance Day’, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) celebrated by conducting ‘speech competition’ on the same topic on December 24 even as there was huge opposition from students, teachers and staff from within the university.
A united protest comprising various student organizations along with JNU Student Association demanding mass-boycott of ‘Good Governance Day’ was held outside the venue of celebration. Insides was the programme/celebrations; outside sloganeering by irate students.
JNU Teacher Association and JNU Staff Association with JNU Officers Association conducted a parallel convention rejecting the administration’s attempts to comply with Modi government’s directives about the Good Governance Day.
Addressing the gathering, JNUSU president Ashutosh Kumar repeated the threat of Vice Chancellor saying “you people have seen one angle of my administration if you continue to protest I will show other side of my face.” Questioning the current situation of ‘Good Governance’ in the context of JNU, he asked “is manual scavenging, violation of workers’ rights and miserable condition of sanitation workers in JNU a sign of good governance?”
JNU Teacher Association president Arun Kumar defined the good governance and questioned “with so much corruption, communal disturbance, poverty and inequality, how is good governance feasible?”
Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) president Nandita Narain also addressed the convention and condemned the celebration of ‘Good Governance Day’. “We don’t need a ‘day’ for good governance. DU is lawless, so there is no governance.”
Defining the university, she marked, “if there is no dialogue in the University then it is no longer a university rather it’s a kind of company based on consumers and production relation.”
A resolution was also issued jointly condemning central government’s recent diktat to conduct the programme mandatorily on Good Governance Day. Resolution also reads “We believe that this order is unfortunate and an assault on the autonomy of educational institutions.” At the end, there is an appeal to the entire JNU community to support and strengthen collective struggle to defend JNU’s autonomy by resisting the government dictated celebration of Good Governance Day on December 24-25.’
As per circulars of the HRD Ministry educational institutions and universities were directed to celebrate and organise essay writing competition or other events on the theme of ‘good governance’ on the birth anniversary of Atal Bihari Vajpayee that had raised some eyebrows as on December 25 Christmas is celebrated the world over.