Kashmir
Reader: Srinagar: Friday, 08 August 2014.
In recent
months Kashmir University has been a subject of debate in a couple of
newspapers here, including Kashmir Reader. Triggered by the exit of Prof Talat
Ahmad as Vice-Chancellor, this debate has brought into attention some critical
issues about the KU often referred to as the highest seat of learning—a cliché
that has become so laughable in the face of the decay successive VCs have
inflicted on this institution over the past decade.
Some senior
KU professors have opened up. Alongside with them is an
economist-turned-government advisor-turned-business
journalist-turned-banker-turned-corporate consultant-turned-commentator-turned-
columnist-turned-intellectual-turned-occasional pitchman of Kashmir’s freedom
discourse-turned-PDP ‘leader’-who has now taken to journalistic evangelism of
sorts and is lecturing to Kashmiris about anything from the virtues of banking
ethics to the ‘vices’ of VCs from the pulpit of a daily.
The question
is this: Where were these voices when Prof Talat and his predecessor were
gnawing away at the KU left and right?
There was
this senior KU professor, a contender for the VC’s post, lobbing one broadside
after another at Prof Talat in a local daily days after Talat left. There was
another officially-certified and officially-gratified scholar- professor doing
likewise. And then there was our half intellectual, half economist tearing into
Prof Talat after he was well past his grip.
And then, after
lobbing a few volleys here and there, everybody went home as if everything had
been remedied at the KU. As happens here way too often, the usual expedient and
complicit silence then took over. Opportunism? Self -inflicted intellectual
enslavement? Power worshipping? Apathy? Or what? Call it what you may. It can
go by any name.
That said, it
doesn’t however absolve Prof Talat of the corrosion he caused to the KU and its
system because of his gross incompetence and inexperience of operating at such
a high level. The KU had already been left teetering by Talat’s predecessor,
Prof Riyaz Punjabi, but this man’s three years as VC saw the KU virtually nose
diving.
If at all
this man was interested in anything it was the research projects in his own
discipline and in advancing his own interests at the cost of the KU. And of
course in helping the Congress party, to which he owes family allegiance,
spread its insidious influence at the KU campus. It was because of this party
that he was imposed upon the KU. Otherwise, according to some Delhi-based
academicians, he lacked even the basic VC material let alone the vision
critical for running an institution.
It wasn’t
just Talat’s inefficiency that brought the KU down, it was also his lack of
commitment towards the institution. This perhaps in greater measure than his
incompetence. He had literally divorced himself from all vital concerns of the
KU costing the institution very dear.
Sample this.
A few years ago he issued written orders that KU officials, teachers and others
should not see him for any issue or grievance they may have. His office refused
to entertain even an application addressed to him. That obviously cut him off
from the ground realities which he actually should have kept close tabs on.
Sample this
too. If you randomly take any 15-day cycle of his three years as VC, for at
least four to five days you would find him out of station in Delhi or
elsewhere. According to J&K RTI Movement, there have been several RTI
applications seeking information about Talat’s outside trips during his tenure
but the KU has chosen to sleep over them. It is anybody’s guess what can befall
an institution when its head prefers to remain away for such long periods. This
incorrigible absenteeism showed his complete lack of interest and obligation
towards the KU.
Now sample
this too. Towards the last two years or so of his tenure he had almost entirely
outsourced his powers and the decision making to his Registrar who has been
substituting facelessness and bullying for genuine administrative shrewdness .
This man was brought in as Registrar by Talat himself from the Zoology
department which he had been heading for some time. And that is the only
administrative experience of significance he has. Putting such an untested
person at the institution’s most critical administrative position just about
proves how shortsighted and faulty Talat’s decisions were.
Grapevine in
the campus has it that the Registrar is throwing his cards left and right in
the state’s bureaucratic and political circles to ensure he stays in that
position when a new VC takes over. In fact the Registrar’s position has hardly
ever been filled up as is laid down in the KU’s own rule book. It has never
been put to any advertisement in the past decade and a half. People from
nowhere have been picked up and thrust on the KU as its Registrar under absurd
directives of “to continue till further orders.”
Under these
defective directives two professors previously managed to stay in that position
for over six years each. This obviously is done either under some political
exigency or some arbitrary whim of the VC. The sitting Registrar is a product
of the same haphazardness. This casual and stopgap approach to the most
important administrative position in the KU (in some cases more important than
the VC’s) obviously hurts the university in the long run which is so evident
from its current state of disarray.
Campus
grapevine also says that a power tussle of sorts is already under way. The
interim VC is trying to rein in the Registrar who, to the detriment of the
institution, had become bigger than his designation under Talat. The Registrar
is reportedly throwing spanners around to see the interim VC is not confirmed
at that position in which case he would most certainly be asked to go.
People at the
KU have already sensed the Registrar’s exit. A couple of faculty members have
got their game going and are strongly angling for the Registrar’s position.
Among them is a lady professor who, if appointed as Registrar, would be “a
never-seen-before disaster for the KU if you consider her competence level and
track record,” according to the insiders.
Now back
to Prof Talat.
What Talat
left behind was an almost intractable administrative failure at all levels of
the KU and a culture where everything else is a priority save academics and
authentic institutional growth. The joke part is that Talat had earned himself
this charming sobriquet among his officials for his rubber stamp style of
administration: approved-as-proposed-VC.
This autopsy
is not by way of any insinuation or rubbishing Talat as a person. But it is
important to point out how our public institutions function under persons who
don’t have the competence to run them to start with. And who end up treating
these institutions as their backyard playhouse. Also how they smokescreen their
ineptness and lack of commitment to the institution behind the airs and secrecy
their high office offers them. And where cosmetic changes and inconsequential
matters are gift wrapped as genuine institutional progress and amplified in the
media to distort public view of what is actually happening inside these
institutions.
When Prof
Talat took over as VC, there were huge expectations of all-round qualitative
changes at the KU. But how the KU suffered under him is way too long a list to
fit in this space. In some cases the details are incriminating if we consider
the high hopes with which 30,000 plus unsuspecting students turn up at the
gates of the KU every year for what they call higher studies.
How far this
man could go in exploiting the KU for personal ends has been vividly
demonstrated in this recent example of misusing the KU’s resources for a very
private function of his son’s marriage, as reported exclusively by the Kashmir
Reader.
Having left
the KU four months ago after double crossing the state government, he had no
legal or moral entitlement to what he has done. Frankly, it is difficult to
imagine ethical standards falling any further. Conversely, it also illustrates
two crucial points. One, how easy it is for anyone with some influence to get
the KU officials to open up the university to misuse. Second, the ease with
which the KU officials are willing to let the university resources be misused
and the convenience with which they can get away over such matters of
impropriety.
It must also
be said that as VC, Prof Talat started off well by ordering some reforms and
stopping officials and teachers from misusing the university’s vehicles. But
then something happened. He faltered pretty early in his term. And then hit the
swamp and got sucked in. The usual band of cheer leaders came around and told
him everything was alright until he completely lost the plot if at all he had
one.
Talat often
covered up his inadequacies in his grouse that Kashmiris are against outsiders
heading their institutions. Kashmiris are not against outsiders heading any
institution here. They are against incompetent, self-serving outsiders who use
our institutions as training grounds for their future ventures. And for their
personal ends too. Prof Jalees Tareen Khan was also an outsider VC and very
efficient, notwithstanding a campaign launched against him in a local daily by
a couple of KU teachers who work there as ‘editors’ in the evening. Ten years
later, people at the campus still remember him with respect for his work.
Talat’s
listless leadership and meek surrender to petty politicians and bureaucratic pressures
gravely ate into the autonomy of the KU. That is something that will hurt the
university for a long time.
Talat’s stint
would have been far more disastrous but for the current interim VC, Prof A M
Shah, who offered him crutches left and right. Incidentally Prof Shah, who is
in the race for the new VC, enjoys good support in the university for his
till-so-far ‘clean image’. But a clean image is scarcely enough for any
efficient running of any university. A clear vision, sound decisions and a
vibrant leadership are far more critical. These animals have always been in
short supply at the KU campus.
The saving
grace for the KU is that we are talking of Prof Talat in the past tense. God
save the king who ordered Talat’s appointment at Jamia Millia, Delhi sparing KU
another three years of a comprehensive disaster. And Prof Talat’s departure
from KU can be wrapped off in these two words: good riddance. Period.
But wait a
minute. A new VC will take over at the KU in a few weeks or so. We can’t be
sure, we might be in for worse. (To be concluded)
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