Subramanian Swamy's Shadow Over Delhi IIT

 

IIT Delhi

NK SINGH

Time virtually is running out for Delhi's prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, where with every passing day the academic and administrative atmosphere is slipping from bad to worse.

There has been widespread trouble on the campus - one of the families of five which cater to the special technological needs of the country during the past three months. The Institute, which is supposed to be among the best in Asia, has been vitiated by demonstrations, gheraos, strikes and intimidation of individuals.

At present it looks like a mini-battleground with two jeeploads of policemen stationed inside the campus and two truckloads of Central Reserve Police force posted at the outer gates.

All this because the IIT Employees Union has chosen to march on the warpath in support of its two main demands: implementation of the departmental promotion rules and reinstatement of a professor of economics who was sacked on December last by the authorities because of alleged participation in "political activities and unacademic conduct."

But unlike other campuses in the country, the IIT is not a simple case of militants on the warpath. There is something beneath the surface. The disease is an incipient, creeping kind of paralysis, seeping into all levels of administration and the teaching faculty. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is active in Delhi IIT through its political academics.

Both the teaching and non-teaching employees' unions -- the IIT Employees Union and the Pradyogik Adhyapak Samiti -- are dominated by the RSS and Jana Sangh. The PAS was launched under the blessings of the former Chief Executive Councilor of Delhi and its President is a JS-RSS activist. 

The same clique provides leadership and motivation to the union of non-teaching staff. Though the PAS disclaims any former links with the IIT Employees Union, two of the Samiti members advise the Union and even participate in their deliberations.

The RSS group tried to hold a shakha on the campus, but the response from the students was far from encouraging. Now the shakha is held just outside the campus where its compound ends and a residential colony begins. About 30 Class III and IV employees participated in it.

Though the Employees Union claims allegiance of about 1,200 Class III and IV employees out of a total of 1,400, it is not the only union on the campus. There is another association of Class III and IV employees, many of whom do not agree with the methods of the IITEU. 

The Pradyogik Adhyapak Samiti, too, has only a slender minority support among the 197 odd faculty members. Among the students, a few owe allegiance to the RSS, but they do not count for much. 

However, owing to its well-knit organisation, the small RSS group has held the entire campus to ransom.

Politics has added a touch of extremism to the trade union activities on the campus and vice versa. It seems that a parallel administration is being run in the IIT by the RSS.

Shadow of Terror

The Employees' Union has been threatening all those it does not like with dire consequences. Senior members of the faculty live in terror. They often receive 'poison calls' from anonymous callers, making death and assassination threats. 

Recently, one of them tried to stand up to it and the next day his wife was told on the telephone that acid would be thrown at her face if she did not persuade her spouse to mend his ways. Faculty members' houses are often surrounded, abusive and filthy language is used on the occasion, and even family members are not spared.

The Board of Governors was gheraoed on July 22 while it was in session. Even a duty magistrate on a round of the area was stated to have been threatened by some PAS office bearers with dire consequences if he intervened. One of them said that there were MPs who patronised the Samiti.

To cap it all, it has been alleged that the men have a few supporters even among the higher administrative echelons of the Institute. The other day one of the registrars was assaulted in his office by unruly elements. His complaint went before the Senate of IIT. 

The way efforts were made to dismiss the complaint adds a rather sinister dimension to the whole affair. When the Senate was seized of the matter the Director of the IIT and another faculty member stated that the complaint was false. Other members protested and said an enquiry should be made. The Director then took the enquiry in his own hands. 

It was probably not liked by the Chairman of the Board of Governors. So the Director passed on the enquiry to the other Senate member who agreed with his view expressed earlier.

Once again the Chairman had to intervene and specifically instruct that the enquiry should not be conducted by any single individual. At this, a two-member committee was appointed which reported that a prima facie case exists in the complaint.

Another instance of the influence that the Employees Union wields with the authorities is an action against a gardener in the Institute who refused to be a member of the Union. The Director wrote to the Assistant Resident Engineer that the particular gardener should be removed. 

The engineer reported that the gardener was a good workman and he was needed. At this, the A.R.E. requested to take some minimum action. Thereupon the gardener was suspended for two days. It did not require any written procedure because he was a temporary hand.

The professor for whose reinstatement the Employees Union has been agitating is Mr Subramanian Swamy, the Jana Sangh economist of 'Swadeshi Plan' fame. 

He writes regularly in RSS-JS papers, Motherland and Organiser, expounding and extolling the economic, foreign and defence policies of the Jana Sangh. He participates in the Working Committee and Council meetings of the party in the capacity of a permanent invitee and delivers speeches as one of the party leaders. All this in an institution which has no place for politics. 

Outsiders are led to wonder why an academic from the School of International Studies of Missouri University is residing on the campus when he has come to India for research in Hindi philology. The Central Hindi Institute has its headquarters in Agra and only a branch establishment in New Delhi.

Frontier 

27 January, 1973