Celebrations marred by infighting

VADODARA, April 29: Smiles and tears were all around today in the M S University campus as the official celebrations for the golden jubilee got off to a flying start. Nostalgia, sentiment, wonder and pride were very much the order of the day. Would anyone notice if one tear was born of bitterness, if one frown marred an academic brow, or if disgust was disguised by a patina of excitement?

The progressing years bring with them increasing responsibility; celebration necessitates introspection. The alma mater of technocrats like Sam Pitroda, and the podium of teachers like Maharshi Aurobindo today risks being turned into a cesspool of power struggles and personal politics among senior professors. Inevitably and unenviably caught in the power tussles are the students. Student union leaders, the cats pitchforked among the pigeons by political parties, are accused of engineering boycotts and creating disturbances. If this is the order of the day in proud faculties like Fine Arts, Performing Arts, Home Science and Arts, the scene elsewhere beggars description. The faculty power-games crop up every now and then at Syndicate meetings, which prefer to fix the blame rather than the problem. Ironic, since even the deans admit the differences are rarely of any magnitude. But instead of being sorted out between the individuals involved, they insinuate themselves into the classrooms and finally, to thenewspaper headlines.

Arts faculty Dean D H Mohite castigates the phenomenon: “Personal enmities between teachers are definitely affecting academic work. Teachers are forever writing confidential’ complaints to the higher-ups but it surprises no one when they find their way to newspaper offices.”

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He cites the example of the history department, where a change in the head had no repercussion on the politics. “This shows that the problems stem from nothing more than personal differences”, he adds.

Though Mohite does not mention it, sources say the groupism in the department is so bad that a small coterie derailed a senior teacher’s attempt to organise a national seminar on the Solanki dynasty of the State.

Several letters to the dean from the teacher had no effect. If power play paved the way out for former head of the English department Ranu Vanikar some time ago, the department of Home Management in the Faculty of Home Science was most recently in the headlines over the unsavoury allegations exchanged between teachers. Faculty dean Anupama Shah fumes, “When the senior teachers were called to explain their problems, they refused to discuss anything.”

This uncooperative attitude was affecting the students, Shah admits, adding that union leaders were always on the lookout for issues to disrupt classes and create problems.