21st September 2007
Dear Friends, I am attaching herewith a report prepared by my colleagues on the current state of affairs in the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU Baroda. We are extremely thankful to all who supported us in the past months, and hope that the same will continue to remain. Please feel free to forward the report to anyone you think will be interested, and whom I have not been able include. Sincerely Shivaji. *Current** **State** of Affairs: Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU **Baroda** * * * - On the 13th July Governor appointed a fact finding committee to look into the events in the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda, from 9 th May '07, with Convener Prof. Y.K. Alagh (Chairman, IRMA, Anand, Gujarat), and members Dr. Sudarshan Iyengar (Vice Chancellor, Gujarat Vidya Pith, Ahemedabad) and Mr. Haku Shah (Artist-Art Critic, Ahemedabad). They met a large number of staff and students of the Faculty of Fine Arts, ACUA Members and others and have collected all the necessary evidences and the report is awaited anytime now. The MS University authorities remained adamant, and do not consider Honorable Governor's Committee legitimate, and hence no depositions were given. The committee was even denied a space or assistance within the University campus! · At the moment no one has any clue as to what exactly the Governor is going to do on the basis of the report and how the University is going to resist or challenge Governor's decisions and what would be the repercussions of these on the Faculty of Fine Arts. · Respecting Governor's Fact Finding Committee the staff and students called off active agitation by mid July '07 and since then Faculty of Fine Arts was limping back to unstable normalcy; it has declared last year's results, conducted entrance tests for BVA and MVA and admitted students for the new academic year of 2007-08. · On the 27th July '07 the MSU Syndicate resolved to keep Prof. Shivaji K Panikkar under suspension indefinitely till further orders. · On the 24th Aug. '07 MSU Syndicate decided to terminate Prof. Shivaji K Panikkar from the job. However the decision remained valid only for 4 hours. The decision was based on University's inquiry committee report, which was submitted to the Syndicate in the same meeting. Predictably the report is full of lies, infested with manipulated depositions, evidences, malicious allegations and male-fide intentions. The MS University had already filed a caveat Gujarat University Tribunal, Ahemedabad, four hours before the table-agenda of termination was tabled in the Syndicate. After coming to know about the content of Prof. Panikker's petition which was to be filed pleading for a stay order from the Tribunal against termination and also due to the effective intervention and dissent of Dr. I I Pandya, the sole non-saffron member in the University Syndicate, the same Syndicate reverted back to the earlier indefinite suspension, while also deciding on a new plan of instituting a departmental/disciplinary inquiry against Prof. Panikkar. · As per the Syndicate the decision on the 24th Aug. '07 a disciplinary inquiry and charge sheet is also due to 5 other colleagues of Prof. Panikkar - Mr. Jayaram Poduval, Mr. Santhosh.S., Ms Abha Sheth, Mr. Jayakumar Reddy and Mr. Iftikhar Ahmed. · Moreover, the 24th Aug. '07 Syndicate also decided to constitute a committee to supervise the Faculty of Fine Art's functioning, especially all the exhibitions. · While challenging the suspension of Prof. Shivaji K Panikkar is soon going to be filed in the court, the hearing of the criminal case against Chandra Mohan's is still pending in the Baroda sessions court -the charge sheet is still being awaited. His result is withheld and remains deeply affected by the situation. · The sections of staff and students who had withdrawn active agitation after Governor appointed his committee, are now terribly frustrated. With no temporary lecturers appointed (three of the Art History lecturers are not appointed, two of whom along with one permanent staff member are awaiting charge sheets for supporting the agitation). With Prof. Shivaji K Panikkar also unable to teach only a very few Art History classes are being conducted. A few classes were being pushed down up on the students by some ill equipped PhD students. The students remain terribly frustrated and have already resorted to boycotting classes since over two weeks by now. - Due to the illegal use of power, negligence of responsibilities, manipulations and deliberate harassments and victimization motivated by political intentions by the MS University authorities supported by the state government, the life and career of several staff members particularly of Prof. Panikkar and colleagues, and of the entire Faculty of Fine Arts and of several student's future are in great danger. - The research work of Prof. Panikkar is suffering gravely since his documents and research data is locked-up in the Department of Art History and Aesthetics, where he is denied entry since over the last four months. The University authorities have lent only deaf ears to his repeated requests and pleadings to allow him to use the library, visual archive and other documentary facilities. - Possibly, all will agree that as the Head of the Department, Prof. Panikkar was the leading spirit of the Department in the past several years, and through his and his colleague's visionary initiatives several new avenues and reputation of Art History as a discipline with radical potential had opened up, all of which remain stranded and disbanded in the current political scenario. - Several research projects supported by UGC and other funding agencies also remain stalled. One of such ambitious projects initiated by Prof. Panikkar was of digitizing the large collection of visual and other data in the Regional Documentation Center, which remains unfulfilled. - A grant of over Rs. 84 lakh from Sir Ratan Tata Trust for three years was granted to the Department of Art History and Aesthetics in the month of April '07 with Prof. Panikkar was named as the Coordinator, and was to be implemented starting from the current financial year. This too remains marooned. - Major plans of publishing the last four year's national seminars are also facing set-back. The grant received for a specialized quarterly critical art history electronic journal for the coming three years also remain as an unfulfilled dream today. Similarly, due the illegal suspension of Prof. Panikkar library grants worth Rs. 15 lakhs for the Faculty of Fine Arts Library remain unusable. - Sanctioned grants and plans for national and international conferences which were scheduled in the coming three years too remain threatened. - Sanctioned grants and scheduled plans for Guest and Visiting Faculty too remain cancelled. - The above condition is a result of the University's apathy towards new and adventurous academic directions and it also indicates the nature of University's reactionary politics, and the deliberate political vengeance of the right wing of the MS University authorities to the people thinking in revolutionary and progressive directions in their respective disciplines. The attitude and decisions of the University authorities are major institutional losses and deeply harm the Faculty of Fine Arts as a whole and Art History Department in particular in their democratic beliefs and right to protest and mark any point of dissent. Personally the future of a number of committed academician's careers is in terrible jeopardy. - The above situation has also brought out a life situation to all who are thinking in progressive terms, the reality of fascist threats and physical attacks; the lives of those who protested the MSU authorities are under surveillance. The students and teachers who raised voice of dissent and disagreement to the MSU authorities live in fear of them being physically assaulted and attacked. Several instances of false police cases against innocent supporters of the cause and on a day to day basis they all are being subjected to mental torture and harassments. We live with the fear of danger which hides in every nook and corner of the city of Baroda and the state of Gujarat, which do not even allow us to move freely in this place. -- Ranjit --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
