‘Authoritarian functioning’: JNUTA condemns JNU’s adoption of CUCET for admission from 2022

NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) condemned JNU’s decision to hold the Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) for JNU admission from this academic year 2022-23, calling it a “brazen display of authoritarian functioning”.

“Continuing his brazen display of authoritarian functioning, the Caretaker Vice Chancellor, M Jagadesh Kumar has once again bulldozed his dictat, making JNU part of the Central University Common Entrance Examination (CUCET), as a decision of the 159th Academic Council held online on January 12, 2022,” it said.

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The teachers’ association accused the JNU VC of “orchestrating the discussion on the CUCET which was sent as an additional agenda item on January 10, 2022, by stating that a decision on the matter had already been taken in the 157th meeting of the Academic Council.”

“This however is not true..a discussion on CUCET was not even listed on the agenda of the meeting according to the perusal of the minutes,” it claimed. It argued that CUCET was only a part of the several recommendations of the advisory committee and went on to say neither it was adopted in the 157th meeting nor it was discussed during the meeting.

Authoritarian Behaviour of JNU VC

JNUTA further accused VC of ignoring the opinions of as many as 111 faculty members and said, “Not only did the Vice Chancellor not place this letter on the table, he also did not allow people to raise apprehensions with respect to the adoption of CUCET. Honourable members raised issues about the unique nature of the University and their respective centres and requested that this matter be first discussed at the Centre or School level. But unfortunately, the Caretaker VC did not allow their concerns any space and muted the speakers abruptly.”

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JNUTA strongly condemned the “authoritarian behaviour of the Caretaker VC”, that of muting the mics of members of the Academic Council as well as faculty members in order to stop them from speaking.

“After ending the meeting without allowing members to speak despite their raised hands, it is ironical that the University administration has persisted in shamelessly releasing a press note claiming ‘overwhelming ‘endorsement for all decisions taken at the Academic Council meeting held today,” the Association stated.