The JNU registrar has released a circular on Sunday stating that they have constituted a high-level commitee to get suggestions from student representatives to find a solution for the hostel issues. Interestingly though, the administration only gives the students until 5.30pm to do so. That too, on a Sunday.
This high-level committee announcement comes days after the MHRD constitutes it's own high power committee to speak to the students about their demands. The MHRD committee was put together after a prolonged protests by the students. So far, two meetings have happened between both parties and the committee is expected to give its recommendations soon. However, the students were unhappy wth the fact that the VC was not present at the interaction. With this latest announcement by the registrar, the Student Union on Twitter asks whose authority they are supposed to trust, the MHRD committee or the administration's?
The Registrar has named seven members who will be constituting the high level committee and this includes Umesh Kadam, the Dean of students who isn't on the best terms with the Student Union. In fact, the Student Union had issued a 'showcause' notice to him as a form of protest.
The Student Union issued a statement saying that the notice was not mailed to them, "Even as government appointed committees find that it's common sense to recognise the legitimacy of the elected union, the administration continues to not recognise the same."
The Union has said that the very for action of the IHA committee is an act of 'subverting the Inter Hostel Administration body which is a statutory body unto itself'. "The only means by which the current impasse that the University is stuck in may be broken us by an unequivocal revocation of the IHA manual "passed" by the IHA committee," the Union said.
The Union also pointed out that even in the IHA committee meeting held last month, the administration had refused to call the JNUSU, despite it being a member of the committee, "The administration's proclivity towards the destruction of all duly constituted statutory bodies finds its reflection even in this case since it is the IHA committee and not a group of arbitrarily chosen members of the faculty with obvious vested interests which has the mandate to look into issues concerning the hostels."
The JNUSU also added that they propose that the VC resign from his post, "His purposive incompetence has forced the university into this position. Whatever ludicrous games of perception this administration might play, it cannot pull wool over anybody's eyes. The fee hike and the hostel manual is unacceptable so ous this VC and the administration that doesn't recognise the student union," the students said.
