AMU Authorities throw Spanner in the Wheel even as AMU Teachers Celebrate Restoration of their Democratic Right in the University

ALIGARH May 24:  Teachers at Aligarh Muslim University were in a celebratory mode today following the revival of two vital representative bodies of teachers, the AMUTA and the University’s Executive Council, which had been in cold storage for the past few years now. Elections to a number of different democratic bodies within the institution were being continuously postponed on different pretexts by the university authorities. In the early hour of the morning today, the results of thirteen different posts of the AMU Teachers Association (AMUTA) which had not been held for the past five years were announced.

Similarly, elections for electing four teachers representative to the AMU Executive Council, the main governing body of the Institution were also held today and the results for which are expected to be announced later tonight.

In the elections for the Teachers Association, 85 per cent teachers exercised their ballot, an all time record, in which Professor Mohammad Khalid, secured 590 votes and was declared elected as President of the AMUTA defeating his only rival Professor Nisar Ahmad Khan who secured 488 votes. Ubaid Ahmad Siddiqui was elected as Honorary Secretary and Saad Bin Javed was elected joint Secretary. Elections to AMUTA had not been held since the year 2018, and teachers had been deeply exercised on this issue.

The elections to the AMUTA were however marred by a controversy when, at the eleventh hour, the AMU authorities suddenly announced that they would not accord legitimacy to Tuesday’s poll process, since the election officer who had conducted the poll process had “not been appointed through the regular process”. The AMU administration’s reluctance to give legitimacy to the poll process has somewhat marred the euphoria of the teachers who, for the past three years had been demanding the restoration of the teachers association, which they consider as their main plank for voicing their opinion on various issues pertaining to their rights. An official release of AMU, barely 48 hours before polling was to take place, stated that the election officer for conducting the AMUTA elections should have been appointed by the outgoing executive of the teachers association (AMUTA), and not through a general body meeting of the teachers. However, a large number of senior faculty members dismissed this objection by pointing out that the term of the outgoing executive committee of AMUTA had in fact ended more than three years back and as such they had no locus standi on this matter.

The President-elect of AMUTA, Prof. Mohammad Khalid told this writer, “Restoration of representative bodies of teachers is vital for all institutions of higher learning. I am very hopeful that after yesterday’s record turnout of teachers for voting, the university administration would now pave the way for removing the minor technical objection, which they had earlier raised. This would help the institution in functioning smoothly, and would give teachers a sense of full participation in the affairs of the university”.

Meanwhile, the AMU administration has so far not offered any plausible explanation for the technical objection raised by them at the last moment. Teachers assert that if this objection had been raised when the AMUTA had announced their poll schedule about a fortnight back, this controversy could have been avoided. The last minute attempts by the AMU authorities, to scuttle the poll process have therefore raised more questions than it has answered, regarding the future of the functioning of different representative and governing bodies within the university.

INDIA NEWS STREAM