Rebuff VC’s Full Blown Design to Shut Down JNU!

17 Days of Indefinite Hunger Strike

17 Days: Raju (Raju had to break his strike due to serious deterioration in health on the 17th day), 8 Days: Ravi Ranjan,  Day 1: Akshay, Marie, Banshidhar

Strengthen the Ongoing Struggle – This is a Battle In Defence of Our Future, In Defence of JNU!

Join Massive Human Chain – Feb 17 Friday, 4PM

The JNU VC is shockingly announcing arbitrary decisions and fundamental changes in JNU’s admission policy and research programmes through press conferences – refusing either to discuss these in JNU’s decision-making bodies like AC, or to meet students’ and teachers’ representatives. It is now 17 days since JNUSU began an indefinite hunger strike against the arbitrary and unilateral imposition of the 2016 UGC notification by the JNU administration. For more than two months now, students and teachers have been raising crucial questions regarding this notification. Instead, the administration is threatening students with punitive action, when students worried about their future and about JNU’s research quality, are simply seeking explanations and answers.

Friends, VC’s press statements & circulars have made it abundantly clear that he is adamant on (a) continuing with his unilateral imposition of the 5 May 2016 UGC Notification and (b) admissions in and conduct of JNU’s M.Phil./Ph.D. programmes will now be dictated by the arbitrary number of ‘supervisor-student’ ratio in the UGC Notification.

JNU presently follows a system of “Annual Admissions to an integrated M.Phil./Ph.D.”, based on ‘Intake/Offer’ decided by different centres. But according to JNU VC’s interpretation of the UGC Notification, there will be no “fixed” seats in M.Phil./Ph.D. anymore – rather, seat availability will now be ‘dynamic’, based on the number of so-called “vacancies”- i.e. whether any faculty has fewer students than the UGC specified cap! 

Recall that initially, the VC had had been tweeting that protesting students are spreading “rumours” of seat cuts, and that there will be “no seat cuts” (despite several circulars and JNU website notices on ‘’seat cuts’’). Now he is trying to hide the ‘’seat cut’’ move with the jumla of ‘dynamic seats,’ admitting in effect that he had scrapped the very concept of a fixed number of seats, and so there is no question of seat cuts! 

The dangerous implications of VC’s ‘Dynamic’ Seats’ jumla– a Cover-Up for ‘Seat Cut’:

• It will mean Massive Seat Cuts in M.Phil./Ph.D. admissions as already notified through “negative vacancies” in JNU website (6 Feb onwards) and circulars (11/1/17 and 11/2/17) from Director of Admissions. Here is link to JNU website showing ‘negative vacancies for admission’ – http://www.jnu.ac.in/Admission/SchoolwiseProg.pdf.
• A virtual closure to the existing system of Annual Admissions for M.Phil./Ph.D. for all batches to come.
• A body blow to the scope for “reservations” as the so-called ‘vacant’ seats will arise only in small numbers and not in annual bulk.
• Dismantling the “Integrated” character of JNU’s M.Phil./Ph.D. Programme, as according to VC’s new ‘formula’, continuation in Ph.D. will be will no longer be guaranteed by CGPA scored in M.Phil., but will based on whether number of students under a supervisor is below the specified limit!
• Discouraging students and downgrading research: Supervisors to be allotted not on the basis of students’ area of choice or faculty’s area of expertise, but only on whether a faculty has fewer students than the UGC specified cap.
• Thus, not only those who aspire to get admission in JNU for M.Phil./Ph.D, but also those who are already admitted in M.Phil./PhD. program are under a massive survival threat because of VC’s authoritarian step.

Why The VC’s Move of Seat Cut is Fundamentally Wrong and Motivated:

• Firstly, the present number of seats in JNU has been fixed as part of the implementation of OBC reservation and the concomitant expansion of seats, infrastructure and faculty (during 2008-10), mandated by the 93rd amendment of the Constitution. Even the agenda of 142nd AC Meeting includes the “intake/offer” list of admissions based on this 93rd Constitution amendment (i.e., 54% increase in intake of 2006- the base year for calculating expansion for OBC reservation), which the VC is now trying to negate. So the VC’s move to tamper with JNU’s existing Intake/Seats/Admissions is plainly unlawful and cannot be accepted.

• Secondly, cutting down admissions is not the only way to ensure a certain “supervisor-researcher ratio” – the answer is to recruit adequate faculty. Why should the students be made to suffer and why should future research avenues be curtailed?
• Thirdly, when JNU with its present “faculty-student” strength has been rated as the best Central University and when no teacher is complaining of any “overburden” and are in fact are opposing seat cut, why is the VC so keen to shut down admissions in JNU’s research programmes for several years to come?
• Fourthly, research students cannot be allotted a supervisor just based on the fact that the supervisor is now guiding fewer than the ‘specified’ number of students! Supervisors are allotted based on their field of expertise and the student’s chosen field of research. Imposing an abstract ‘numbers’ rule will spoil JNU’s record as the best Central University because it will be a body blow to the quality of research supervision and discourage students to pursue research as per their academic interest.
• Fifthly, VC’s claim that all provisions of social justice are being retained in JNU is also another jumla and white lie on at least two counts: (a) the VC swears by the UGC notification which fixes uniform 50% marks to qualify the written exam without any relaxation for the reserved categories and JNU has not announced the mandated “relaxations” for students from deprived backgrounds at each and every stage of elimination in the admission process, despite a categorical verdict from the Delhi High Court- the Gautam Sharma Vs. JNU (19 Jan 2016); (b) VC is making JNU’s unique system of deprivation points in fructuous, by adding it after the viva stage when the students from deprived backgrounds and areas have already lost out in the initial stages of a “multi-stage elimination” based admission process.

Trampling Upon Due Procedure, Undermining All Statutory Decision Making Bodies:

In no way can the JNU VC alter the current criterion of admission and continuing in M.Phil./Ph.D. and bring in ‘’supervisor-researcher’’ ratio as a precondition, and that too without being discussed or decided by the University’s statutory bodies such as the Academic Council. The VC, instead of addressing the crisis situation and questions from students and teachers, is only interested in peddling falsities to the media.

• Firstly, the UGC Notification is an issue which directly affects the students and hence needs to be placed for discussion in Part A of the AC meeting, where students participate. But this was not done, and it was placed only in the Part B of 142nd AC meeting, where there is no student representation. And the teachers have testified in unison from the very day of the AC meeting, that UGC notification was neither “discussed” nor “approved” but bulldozed in the part B of 142nd AC meeting!
• Secondly, on a closer scrutiny of administration’s own version of the “Agenda and Minutes of 142nd AC- Part B”, it is amply clear that the specific clause of “supervisor-researcher ratio” in the UGC Notification was kept as a separate item in the agenda under the title “to be discussed.” The “minutes of 142nd AC- Part B”, circulated by the administration, do not record any “discussion” or “adoption” of this specific clause of the UGC Notification. When, even as per administration’s own version, the “supervisor-researcher ratio” clause of UGC circular has not been “adopted” by JNU’s  AC, what is prompting the VC to interpret and impose it through arbitrary circulars and press conferences? 

Below are relevant images of Pg 10 and 28 of the “Minutes of the Part B of 142nd AC meeting”. The minutes in Pg 10, point 6, claim that UGC Notification was adopted as reflected in the relevant changes in JNU’s M.Phil./Ph.D. Ordinance attached in Annexure II and Annexure III. The elaboration in the Annexures II & III of the Minutes show that 2 clauses of UGC Notification – Clause 6.5 related to Supervisor-researcher ratio and 13.1 & 13.2 related to award of degree – were listed separately as “items to be discussed” and that there is NO recording against these items as “discussed”/”resolved”/”adopted” for changes in JNU’s M.Phil./Ph.D. ordinance, as indeed no discussion took place at all on these and so there is no question of any adoption of these clauses of UGC Notification as is being claimed by the VC!

• Thirdly, as per JNU’s Act and Statutes, admission policies and ‘intake/offer’ of seats of admissions are to be discussed and decided through Centre-level, School Level Board of Studies and finally the Academic Council Meetings. Let us emphaise that the even agenda of 142nd AC Meeting includes the “intake/offer” list of admissions proposed by different centres, based on this 93rd Constitution amendment. This is what VC is trying to suppress and deny. Indeed, the VC seeks to replace all due forum and process through his incessant arbitrary circulars and Press Conferences, where he is both announcing and interpreting crucial policies as per his whims and fancy. The sanctity of all the forums and statutory decision making bodies of JNU like the AC are being trampled upon and a dangerous precedent is being for the entire institution and our collective future. VC cannot be allowed to act like a tyrant of feudal ages, as JNU is not his fiefdom nor are students and teachers his subjects. So the 142nd AC needs to reconvened to uphold the sanctity of JNU’s mandated decision making process.

With the VC’s grossly arbitrary and anti-student actions threatening to wipe out the admission prospects for the coming session and possibly several coming years in M.Phil./Ph.D., and also endanger the future for the existing students in M.Phil./Ph.D., we have no other means but to fight back to save our future and also the future of JNU.

 JNUSU appeals to the student community to join and strengthen the ongoing struggle until the VC reconvenes the 142nd AC meeting and arbitrary impositions of the UGC notification is revoked.

This is a JNUSU Release.