A Statement on This, That and the Other …
I
I was asked to discontinue my work at the Law School last week. The reasons cited for this were that (a) the Enquiry Committee – which had been appointed to look into a certain episode – was not inclined to do its work (for whatever reason) and that (b) the Executive Council meeting was around the corner and that ‘therefore’ – sic – I was being asked to discontinue. These reasons are vague at best, and completely IRRELEVANT to my position in this whole sequence of events.
As many of you may be aware, I have had problems working with certain characters among the present faculty that have cultivated a habit of treading on other people’s feet. As a response to a certain episode, the Director (A. Jayagovind) had set up an Enquiry Committee to look into matters. The terms of reference of the Committee were not clear to me at all, and I had therefore asked the Director for clarifications in relation to the terms.
The Director seems to have thought that the terms were quite clear and that I ought not to have been concerned about them. He seems also to have read my request for a clarification of the terms as a personal affront to him!
Well, why would I not be concerned about the terms of reference?? Consider this:
There were four people (U.R. Rai, V.Vijayakumar, V.S. Elizabeth, U.R. Rai and I) that were witness to what transpired at the original incident. By denying even that anything provocative was said at all, two of them (V. Vijayakumar and V.S. Elizabeth)are lying unashamedly. (They lied to the Director, they lied at the faculty meetings, and they lied god knows where else – ALL fora where I WAS NOT PRESENT; and so they lied BEHIND MY BACK. That speaks volumes for the kind of cowards the two of them are. Suffice it to say that there are no prospects of redemption on the horizon for these miserable souls …)
As for the third witness (U.R. Rai), I must say that I don’t know him at all. It seems that while he may be able to testify to most of the facts, he – not being associated with the Law School for as long as the others – may not appreciate the particular dynamics of the hierarchical issues involved here.
That makes this a case of my word against the words of these others. I didn’t - and don’t - obviously, have any illusions about ‘the truth coming out’ of any exercise involving an Enquiry Committee in this situation.
In such a situation, why would I not be concerned about the terms of reference? If you think about it, the terms of reference is the ONLY place where I might have had some control over the process, as the rest would be entirely up to the other people involved.
It may be – as I too continue to believe – that the Director “has his heart in the right place”. But having one’s heart in the right place simply does not make up for plain incompetence in the setting up and managing of any mechanism for the doing of justice. One is entitled to expect – at the least – some basic competence from a person such as the Director in the drafting of the terms of reference. But, despite the Director’s claims to the contrary, he is no master legal draftsman. Had his original terms of reference been allowed to operate without the subsequent explicit clarification, I could have been hung even without an Enquiry Committee!
[The most conspicuous historical analogy that comes to mind in a case such as this is the Moscow show trials organized by Joseph Stalin in the late 1930s. (Ref. John Dewey’s report on these trials). Although, I can’t imagine that the Director would be flattered by the comparison!]
And the Director gets upset – and cries like a baby – that anyone should question, or ask for clarifications on, the terms of reference. Don’t cry, for heaven’s sake!! It’s not your credentials as a legal draftsman that is on the line here – this is about more important things.
To his credit, the Director did, eventually, issue an explicit clarification on the terms of reference that I found to be satisfactory. However, for reasons that continue to remain mysterious to me, it seems that the Enquiry Committee was now no longer inclined to do its work.
And all this time, my response in full to the Notice issued to me by the Enquiry Committee has been with the Committee.
From my own point of view, I would have discontinued my work at the Law School at this point anyway as I now no longer had any confidence either (a) in the Director personally, or (b) in his ability and competence to set up and manage any mechanism for the doing of justice. I would have discontinued as the confidence I had in the Director when I came back here in June 2005 had ceased to subsist. Since this confidence had been the basis of my contract with the Law School, and since this basis no longer remained available, I would have dissociated myself from this place anyway.
II
Essentially, your Director is just plain scared. He is scared that he will be asked questions on issues such as the present one at the Executive Council meeting. And he’d rather not have to answer any questions on anything at all. And so, how does he go about sorting this issue out? Well, there are those in the teaching staff that are apparently dispensable, and those that he dare not upset or confront in any way – for that may mean that they will get back at him with even greater force in the future, - and he goes, therefore, for the easy option, which is to get rid of the ‘dispensable’ ones.
Also, essentially, for all their bloated vanities about the Law School being a ‘centre of legal excellence’, etc., neither your Director nor many of the senior members of the faculty here even COMPREHEND the distinction between ‘contract’ and ‘status’. They do not comprehend that when I contract with the Law School to teach a course, it is the terms of the contract that govern and limit the conditions of my work at, and my relations with, the Law School. Apparently, going by the kinds of arguments a few of these characters have been making at what pass for serious fora such as faculty meetings, etc., they claim that when, for instance, I contract with the Law School to do some work (e.g. teach a course, etc.), I am somehow ‘required’ to ‘subordinate’ myself to the almighty powers of the hierarchical pecking order here! Having long thrown themselves around their students and their administrative and clerical staff, whom they routinely scare and intimidate, they think that they can throw themselves around everyone, including other teaching staff. Contract?? Hello, what’s that?? If thou hast contracted, then thou shalt slave! If thou refuseth to lick thy ‘seniors’’ you-know-whats, then thou shalt be hunted and shot!
III
This is not the community I remember from when I was a student here. I am not much impressed by a community where the arbitrary exercise of power is, as a matter of course, left unquestioned and acquiesced in. It seems that the habitual abuse of authority here has gotten routinised to such a degree that most people here have grown numb to it. I knew when I got here in June that things were bad here. But I hadn’t realized that things were THIS bad.
What time – and a little routine unchallenged disciplining/chastising authority over children – can do to people! People I used to have a little respect for have turned into ugly lying ogres that I can no longer recognize. They now only evoke disgust.
I am glad I no longer have to share corridor-space with a few of these insufferable and psychopathological liars.
Am I sad or disappointed? Personally – not at all. My life and preoccupations are a zillion times bigger than Law School. I am therefore not invested in any significant way in the affairs of the Law School. I am only sad for the Law School, where it seems that the only thing that matters to a few of the entrenched faculty is the disciplining of students – and the attempted disciplining of younger faculty (!) – and where only a few of the faculty are interested in issues scholarly or academic.
I must say, though, that I certainly enjoyed teaching the first year students. I hope my students got something out of the (half) course that I taught them.
I might also note, with some wry satisfaction, that this whole episode can only do my street cred good! Perhaps I should be thankful to the Law School for that!
[I can now go catch that Kannada movie (Jogi) I have been meaning to see for sometime now. This is that movie with that infectious number, “Hodimaga, hodimaga, hodimaga, hodimaga, bidabeyda avanna”].
Dattathreya Subbanarasimha
August 21, 2005