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NEW DELHI: Ceaseless pressure from the Human Resource Development Ministry on the educational system has delivered the biggest casualty so far. IIT Delhi director Raghunath K.Shevgaonkar has resigned under pressure to sanction Rs 70 lakhs to BJP functionary Subramanian Swamy for supposed ‘salary dues’ from 1972 till 1991.
The second reason because of which the Director, who still has two years to go,stepped down was because of continuous pressure from the Ministry to allow cricketer Sachin Tendulkar to open a cricket academy on the grounds of the Indian Institute of Techonology, recognised worldwide as an educational institute par excellence.
HRD Minister Smriti Irani who was in the eye of a storm shortly after her appointment for not having completed her graduation, is faithfully following the BJP agenda and matters came to a point where Shevgaonkar was left with no option but to submit his resignation.
Subramanian, now that the BJP government is in power, has been clearly able to influence the Minister to fight his case wherein he claims his services as a professor in IIT were terminated ,”during the said period. He was reinstated as per a court order and has been demanding his ‘dues’ with 18 per cent interest. This was rejected both by the IIT and the HRD ministry earlier. The demand was renewed when the Modi government came to power. The IIT position has been against sanctioning the sum, with the Director keen to pursue the legal battle for a final decision. He reportedly rejected an out of court settlement despite efforts by the Ministry towards this end.
Minister Irani has been in the limelights for a while now. Two recent decisions that earned flak, even in the normally reticent media, was her insistence to bring in Sanskrit at the expense of German in schools. After considerable criticism she conceded, ““…we are teaching French, we are teaching Mandarin, we teach German in the same way. For the life in me, I can’t understand why people are not understanding what I am saying.”
She told journalists from the Press Trust of India, “Those who accuse me of being a RSS mascot or RSS representative possibly want to deflect the attention from the good work that we have done… this agenda will be flagged and I will be whipped for as long as there is a need to keep attention diverted away from the good work. I am ready for it. I have no problem.”
Barely had this controversy died down that Irani was back in the news with Christmas Day and instructions to the schools to observe Governance Day on December 25. Notices issued by schools following this suggested that even the holiday for the festival had been cancelled.This raised a storm in Parliament, forcing the Minister to come out with ‘clarifications’ that Dec 25 continued to be a national holiday, and the Ministry was not trying to cancel that.
The resignation of the IIT Director has raised eyebrows across the academic community. A senior Delhi university professor who did not want to be quoted at this stage told The Citizen that “this is a confirmation of the HRD Ministry’s interference in all academic institutions, even prestigious ones like the IIT that have always valued their independence.” As he added,”the IIT’s are really a national symbol and no one of any integrity will tolerate this kind of pressure.”
