By Deepak Kumar Shahi
The ongoing protest in NEHU, Shillong against the VC Prabha Shankar Shukla has been ongoing since the past week. Some students are on hunger strike and a few have already been hospitalised. Students have made their demands clear in a 16-point memoranda which the VC has agreed to resolve but the Union no longer wants P S Shukla as the VC. Before the NEHUSU protest, the non-teaching staff have also gone on an indefinite strike against the VC, and before them, NEHUTA has been in a tussle with VC over several issues. In fact, strikes have occurred regularly since P S Shukla took charge as NEHU VC.
Strikes and protests are one of the key features of any democratic space and resonate even more with academic institutions. However, it is also important to look into various aspects of strikes and protests and analyze if he events promote student’s interests and benefit the University as a whole. This article explores the causes and factors behind the ongoing strike which has put the campus and academic activities on hold for the past week. Here, the different stakeholders, their demands, and particular interests have been taken into consideration. At the same time the future of NEHU and higher education in general is discussed. The tenure of Prof. Shukla as NEHU VC has been analyzed by focusing upon the major events in the past three years.
The Appointment
It is important to look into the background of Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla and his tenure to understand the current state of NEHU. Prof. Shukla took charge as NEHU VC in 2021 succeeding Prof. Shrivastava. If we look at the appointed VCs in the history of NEHU, the surnames infer a Brahman hegemony which has been at its peak in the past decade. However, the Brahmin stronghold over the high positions in the academic institutions is not restricted to the VC’s post only. In this regard, it is important to mention the Hindi Department at NEHU which for the longest period was monopolized by the Brahmin Professors. Even today, the Brahmins dominate the department with their sheer majority, experience, and high positions. Having said that, it is important to note that the recent recruitment under the tenure of VC Shukla, which has some serious discrepancies and because of which the issue has been in court. The status-quo of the Hindi Department changed and among appointed candidates, two belonged to the ST and OBC category each.
The non-teaching staff, particularly the ad-hoc cleaners went on strike against the VC within the first year and demanded upgradation to a regular scale. The strike continued for months and students were the worst affected in the hostel and the departments as well. Unfortunately, the cleaners received little to no support from others and the strike ended with almost no achievements. This explains the situation of the lowest class which serves society the most without getting its due and recognition either from the authorities or the common people.
The other big move taken by the VC within a year of his tenure was to vacate the two Ph. D. student hostels, Sohpetbneng and Chhinglung as they were declared inhospitable. The two functional hostels at the time had about sixty resident scholars out of the capacity of seventy. In May 2024 the students were asked to vacate the hostels and allotted rooms in the remaining two hostels Umngot and Japfu for PhD students. For the past two years, there has been no attempt to renovate the hostels or to construct new buildings. Again, the students are at the receiving end as they have to wait for years to see a liveable hostel. This has led to discrepancies and irregularities in the hostel allocation process, where students, especially those with no connection and from poor economic backgrounds suffer most. The Bamboo Hut hostels which were initially given to selected students are now being allotted only to the teaching officials.
The Recruitments
In the same year, the VC appointed teaching staff where several allegedly non-eligible and non-capable candidates were preferred over competent ones. The other nepotistic aspect of the recruitment was in giving priority to candidates from upper castes and also from a particular region. This has been a general trend across the country under the current political dispensation for the last decade. Prof. Shukla needed support from teachers but he did not get cooperation from them. Therefore, he attempted to manufacture support by pushing his candidate. In the process, merit, specialization, and required credentials were sidelined in order to appoint certain candidates. Nevertheless, the appointment remained a non-issue for either NEHUTA or NEHUSU up until recently.
Prof. Shukla became over-confident and appointed an individual named Rohit Prasad bypassing all procedures for the post of Technical Assistant. Within two years Prof. Shukla had built an image of an autocrat and it was duly noted by employees and students at NEHU. Rohit Prasad’s case led to a massive protest against the VC in 2023. This led to Rohit Prasad leaving NEHU without completing his term and again with the winter vacation, the temperature at NEHU dropped too. However, the arrogance and unapologetic stubbornness of VC Shukla became evident to all. The first half of the current year remained relatively quiet. Meanwhile different appointments happened including that of Registrar and several others. This is said to be the ultimate issue in the ongoing protest.
Apart from that, Prof. Shukla has been intervening excessively in the functioning of departments especially when it comes to appointment of guest faculties. The implementation of the New Education Policy and CUET are other major issues for the University and departments have struggled with the academic calendar, new syllabus, admission process, etc. Enforcing the political agenda of the Centre is another blame on Prof. Shukla as he has insisted on the participation of teachers and students in programs such as Mangalyaan 3, G- 20, Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, etc. Moreover, under his tenure, NEHU has been falling successively in NIRF Rankings and with that losing its reputation too.
The Protest
The involvement of NEHUSU in the current protest appears to be haphazard, unplanned, vague, and orchestrated by NEHUTA, to say the least. Students at NEHU have been suffering for a long time. The NEHU VC holding the senior most position in the institution has consistently overlooked student’s issues. However, not all the student issues go to the VC directly but the professors, departments, hostel wardens, the DSW, and so on can solve some of the student problems themselves. At the same time when the Hostel fee was hiked directly double this year, students hardly received any support from NEHUTA nor did NEHUSU hold any protest against it.
About the ongoing protest of NEHUSU which started on November 5, the lack of clarity regarding the issues of students in general is due largely to the lack of planning, interaction, and discussion before the protest. Rather than making decisions on the advice of others, NEHUSU should have interacted with fellow students and discussed the issues with them. Students also have to ask their representatives whether the call for protest is in their interest or someone else’s. Student representation is another issue at NEHU if one looks at the demography of students and the background of the representatives. NEHUSU has to decide if it wants to emerge as a strong independent force representing the interests and agenda of students or wants to be in control of NEHUTA and other administrative officials. It must decide its modus operandi and whether it wants to get involved in academic activities and improve the conditions of the University by working for some real progressive and reformative causes or just organizing some recreational events. It has to be wary about the interests of some teachers who are vocal and active in this protest against the VC on grounds of irregularities and corruption when they are themselves causing huge problems to their students by keeping them waiting for their Ph. D. Viva-voce for more than a year which is clearly against the guidelines of UGC.
The nature of the protest is another issue which NEHUSU has to be clear about. Any person with minimum integrity would resign looking at the apathy from employees and students in general on the campus. The obstinate nature of Prof. Shukla implies how immoral, self-centered, and power-hungry a person he is who hardly values public image and self-respect let alone the integrity and reputation of an Institution like NEHU.
(The author is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History, NEHU, Shillong.)