While the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) administration must be looking forward to its first ever Ramayana inspired webinar titled: ‘Leadership lessons through Ramayana’, the students it hopes to educate seem far from amused. The online seminar will be conducted on May 2 and 3 and is only open to JNU students, staff and teachers who have to register for access. The announcement was made a few days ago by the vice chancellor himself and got a lot of media attention.
Even JNU’s Vice Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar Mamidala, hopes that his students make sure they log on and attend this webinar and learn some ‘leadership lessons,’ from Ramayana the JNU Students Union has issued a statement on how they interpret the “priorities” of their university administration.
“We definitely hope that wherever the JNU administration and the Vice Chancellor are deriving their ‘leadership prowess’ from, it helps them to focus on the issues faced by the students and workers employed in JNU.”
The JNUSU says that the university has already seen “a failure of leadership on issues of a serious nature. Leadership requires a sense of responsibility and care for the constituents you are assigned to serve.”
The students’ union also addressed the media, as many had dutifully reported that the seminar would be held, though it is not known yet if some friendly journalists may even be invited to attend the seminar as guests. The students union has asked the media to also focus equally on the grave issues which should be addressed by JNU administration on a priority basis.
JNU admin’s leadership failure?
It is International Workers’ Day, May Day, and Labour Day, but at JNU the daily wage workers including sanitation workers, laborers and those employed in various manual jobs on contractual basis have not been paid by the administration states the JNUSU. The workers have apparently not been paid their salaries of up to three months. “The JNU administration and the companies which provide the contractual staff for housekeeping and sanitation- *Max, and Bedi & Bedi in particular,* are doing a back and forth of putting the blame on each other and hence denying workers their salary. On top of that, the supervisors and the company management are compounding the misery of the workers by making a lot of workers go back without marking their attendance when they travel from far off places. This makes them miss out on their daily wage,” alleged the JNUSU on record.
This of course is also in violation of the Union Government’s Covid-19 lockdown guidelines on engaging and paying labourers even on days they have to stay at home and follow all the lockdown protocols. The JNUSU has also alleged that even though labourers are coming to work as easily as 5 am, many of them are being “marked absent”.
“This treatment of workers who are vulnerable is an absolute scandal and the companies *Max, Bedi & Bedi* as well as the JNU administration should be ashamed of themselves for treating workers this way,” stated JNUSU.
The webinar will go live on May 2 and 3 from 4 pm to 6 p.m and is “strictly for JNU Faculty, Staff and Students.” It has been organised by JNU’s School of Language, Literature and Cultural Studies and School of Sanskrit & Indic Studies. It will be conducted by Professor Santosh Kumar Shukla from JNU’s School of Sanskrit and Indic Studies and Professor Mazha Asif from School of Language, Literature and Cultural Studies. This Ramayana inspired leadership webinar is a collaboration with The Ramayana School.
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For the skeptics and the rationalists who may criticise his inspiration for the webinar, Vice Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar Mamidala, quotes Mahatma Gandhi as saying: “About Rama, in 1946, Mahatma Gandhi said: He is one without a second. He alone is great. There is none greater than He. He is timeless, formless, stainless. Such is my Rama. He alone is my Lord and Master.”
The JNUSU has also reminded everyone that the university administration had recently conducted an Academic Council meeting online to discuss the academic period lost due to the lockdown. However the students, who are directly affected, were not asked for their suggestions.
“Shamefully, again no suggestions were taken from the elected JNUSU as the representatives of the stakeholders- the students who are going to be most affected,” stated JNUSU.
However the JNU administration had released a timetable which the students alleged is far from understanding ground realities. They say the administration is “conjuring up dates in thin air” even as the intensity of cases of the Covid-19 pandemic increases.
JNU has not proposed that students get back by June, and in the meanwhile continue with online classes. “Ludicrous suggestions of conducting synopsis related RAC online and keeping the returning students two weeks in isolation (knowing full well the logistical non starter that such a proposal without any preparation would be) shows that not only were suggestions not taken, there was scant preparation of detailed study of the crisis by the administration appointed Deans of Schools,” stated the JNUSU, “overall the administration is at sea and unprepared for detailing a return to academics that does not cause any inconvenience to the students.”
The JNUSU has demanded that the JNU administration consult the stakeholders regarding issues related to lag in academics and provide relief to workers at the earliest.
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