By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
About 50 aspiring research scholars at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) have been protesting around the administrative block for the past 20 days for a fair PhD admission process, but it seems that AMU administration is not willing to pay heed to their demands.
AMU organised PhD entrance examination between October 4 to October 8 this year. As soon the results of this entrance were announced last month, many students sat on a protest outside the administrative block demanding a fair declaration of a total number of vacancies for PhD students.
Students have alleged that AMU conducted the entrance examination as per the UGC guidelines, but when it came to the admission of the students after the result declaration on November 16, the University refused to follow the UGC guidelines. AMU allegedly reduced the number of total vacant seats in the final declaration after the result announcement.
In the letter written to the media by protesting students, students have said that AMU has followed “arbitrary rules”, not UGC guidelines, in declaring the available seats under professors, associate professors and assistant professors.
As per the UGC guidelines, a professor can take as many as eight research scholar, the associate professor can take six scholars, and an assistant professor can take a maximum of four research scholars. But when the vacancy declaration came out with the PhD ordinance, AMU professors, associate professor and assistant professors seemed to be able to supervise six, four and three students respectively.
“This is a clear evidence of discrimination and injustice towards the whole PhD student fraternity and a sheer lack of adherence to UGC guidelines pertaining to PhD admissions,” wrote protesting students in a demand letter addressed to the vice-chancellor of the university.
While talking with TwoCircles.net, Shamim Bari, one of the protesting student who succeeded in the PhD entrance examination, said, “It is the 20th day today that we are protesting under the open skies in this cold for our demands. We went to meet vice-chancellor once, but he was not interested in our genuine demands.”
Another serious allegation against university admins is that the administration has reserved the one-third of total available seats for the next academic session. This fact is also supported by the mention of the same in the AMU’s PhD ordinance. AMU, here too, has defied UGC guideline, where only those institutes can reserve one-third seats for the session which conduct PhD exams twice in any academic session.
In the demand letter written to the VC, the students have raised three basic demands. First is the declaration of vacancies according to UGC guidelines, not by the arbitrary rules. The second demand is the reversal of seat reservation which does not apply on AMU. And the third demand is to declare the total number of PhD thesis submissions after July 2017 to the current date.
But students have alleged that when they went to meet AMU’s Pro-vice chancellor and Registrar, they instantly disagreed to their second and third demands. Shamim Bari said, “But they said to agree to our first demand and that too after considering it in the academic council meeting.”
On Friday, AMU’s registrar came to the protest site and told the protesting students that AMU has called for urgent Academic Council meeting on December 12, but that will only be held after the students will end protests. Bari admits that registrar’s today’s announcement was rather threatening.
Since the protest has started, three students – Kunwar Ahmad Khan, Ishaq Malik and Izhar – have become seriously ill and they were subjected to medical observation. On December 6, the protesting students took out a protest march while carrying the sick students inside the ambulance accusing university administration of showing apathy.
University’s public relation officer Prof Shafey Kidwai answered these allegations through TwoCircles.net, “Even the UGC guidelines of reserving the seats apply on those institutes which conduct entrance examination twice an academic session, it does not make any sense to us. If we fill all the seats this year, the university will not be able to take up students during next five academic sessions.”
On the question of whether University is defying UGC guidelines or not, Prof Kidwai termed UGC guidelines as “not mandatory” and said, “There are many things mentioned in the guidelines, but we cannot follow all. That is why AMU” – an autonomous body – “mostly runs through its own constitution and rules.”
However, the episode of protest after the result declaration is not new. According to the students, protest over the PhD admission is the new norm in the university since last five years. This time, girl students involved in the protest have written to the National Commission for Women, New Delhi about the conditions under which they are forced to protest.