Editor,
I wish to express my gratitude to Airpeace Rani for raising the issue about teachers in the letter titled “Prerequisites to being a teacher in Meghalaya,” about which none of the actual sufferers (the college teachers) dared to utter a word in the media so far. Injustice is too mild a word to describe what the Congress-led coalition Government has done to the college teachers of Meghalaya. Nowhere in the world has injustice of such a scale ever been meted out to such a huge number of people, that too the intellectuals. It is indeed very difficult to digest the fact that the revised arrears of 2006 have not been paid till 2013, whereas the 7th Pay Commission is scheduled to be set up within few months. Not only that, I came to know from my teacher friends that even the DA of July 2012 was also not paid to the college teachers and the new DA of January 2013 is due to be announced by April. Why is the Meghalaya Government so unfair to the teaching community? It is said that the world owes a debt of gratitude to the teachers. The only exception is the Meghalaya. What surprises me the most is how the college teachers, the think tank of the society, put up with these injustices? Is it not high time for them to come to the streets? The Meghalaya Government and its bureaucrats are immune to petitions, representations and begging. They have to be addressed with the language that they understand better; the path of agitation.
Yours etc.,
Name withheld on request