Daneesh Majid
Hyderabad: Even after the acceptance of the Maulana Azad National Urdu University Vice Chancellor’s resignation, facts about Aslam Parvaiz’s controversial tenure continue to surface. Be it during or after his reign, a fear psychosis still grips many Professors who dare to reveal any unsavoury facet of Parvaiz’s term.
As the effects of his legacy are still fresh in the fabric of India’s only Urdu university, many Professors continued to speak out. Whether they spoke out in individual capacities or as members of the MANUU Teachers’ Union (MANUU TA), it was clear that they feared repercussions. The minutes of the Teachers’ Union meeting which Siasat.com got a hold of further confirmed a lot of Professors’ accounts — ones that were narrated under the condition of anonymity.
“Vindictive, incompetent and nepotistic are the most apt words to describe this Vice Chancellor,” states *AH. The sheer voicing of the healthiest difference brought about with it its set of negative consequences. However, a climate of constructive dissent cannot flourish in such an environment. Those who spoke against Parvaiz’s policies and practices were shunted, suspended and even removed from the service. While MANUU TA General Secretary, Shaheer-uz-Zaman was removed from service, Assistant Prof Bontu Kotaiah was straight away suspended with a rider that he should not be allowed to enter the campus.
Talking about the uncalled for transfers a victim said, “I was with the headquarters for a long time teaching linguistics. When I opposed some of his decisions that were badly affecting my colleagues he pushed me out to the sub-regional center in Charminar. Here I have no teaching assignment and there is no infrastructure to gather students. No academic activity is undertaken here since the center was established several years ago.” She was merely plucked out of the territory where young minds are moulded and firmly transplanted into the regional center’s purely administrative soil. A systems analyst whose job profile was more suited to this Charminar location was shifted to the main Gachibowli campus.
The meeting minutes of MANUU TA show that a policy of transferring teachers for “administrative reasons” was “the stick whereas carrots were for Parvaiz’s inner circle.”
These minutes claim that those who didn’t possess a single day of teaching experience were not only granted coveted Professorial positions, but advanced increments as well.
Another academic pointed out an instance wherein one of Dr Aslam Parvaiz’s own favourites Dr Shakeel Ahmed was brought into MANUU as Registrar. Though he had hardly any teaching experience his position was raised to Pro-VC and then made professor in the Department of Commerce.
Despite a shortage of funds, recruitment of “Yes men/women” continued unabated, his detractors said.
Not only did Professors at a particular level suffered on the account of such maladministration, Deans, Directors, Centers and Departments were also targeted. Leadership of certain schools and departments was supplanted at Parvaiz’s discretion. The School of Sciences and the Centre for Civil Services Coaching were among these casualties.
The H K Shervani Centre from Deccan Studies suffered immensely because its Director Prof Salma Farooqui “did not toe” his un-academic line. She, her colleagues said, wanted to turn it into a center of excellence while Dr Parvaiz wanted her change its working style. As a result her directorship was taken away and a professor of Urdu was made its in-charge. That friction has been there for the last over three years. Prof Farooqui, it is said, has filed a couple of cases against the University.
Two MANUU TA General Secretaries, four department heads were removed from their so called prestigious positions only because they opposed the introduction of an unwarranted biometric attendance system in the university.
Another Professor was quick to mention the plight of another General Secretary who not only received a suspension, but was slapped with a false plagiarism charge. That too, for a paper that he did not publish. “This person who comes from Schedule Caste category has been socially boycotted by the VC. Plus, this was done without following proper procedures and a departmental inquiry about this has been “pending”for an indefinite period of time,” his colleagues in the University said.
This social boycott entails security personnel being instructed to not even let this dissenter enter the MANUU premises.
The imprints of Aslam Parvaiz’s might not be for everyone to see right away. But he will be reembraced more for his eccentric behavior than for any substantial contribution to the growth of the University, both the faculty and student leaders said.