Starved of Director, Students Go Hungry

ITANAGAR: From the premises of the Nyikum Niya Hall in Nirjuli near Arunchal Pradesh's capital Itanagar, music blares over the PA system as a local market welfare society celebrates its foundation day. Across the road, outside the gates of the North East Regional Institute of Science & Technology (NERIST), the mood is starkly sombre.

Students have kept the premier science institute under lockdown since February 27, demanding the appointment of a full-time director, a post that has been vacant since October 2014. The Students’ Union of NERIST (SUN) had served a month’s notice to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) on January 24 to fill the post. After the expiry of the deadline, the union decided to proceed with its agitation, bringing the classes and offices of the institute to a halt.

SUN launched its protest on February 27 by shutting the black iron gates of the institute’s main entrance facing the national highway. The protests escalated when the students failed to see any visible response from the MoHRD and Union minister of state for home affairs, Kiren Rijiju, who had come to the state to flag-off a new train. Students felt that they were being slighted by their own Lok Sabha MP and took to burning effigies of Rijiju and HRD minister Prakash Javedekar.

Since the protests began and his effigy was burnt, Rijiju has written to the ministry about the students’ demand. What has students and faculty perplexed is Rijiju’s alleged comments that the delay in the appointment of a full-time director was caused by internal strife amongst faculty members.

SUN president, Banta Natung, today said that the students have repeatedly asked for the names of the faculty members who are allegedly involved in internal ‘politics’ that has caused the delay in appointment of a full-time director.

Faculty members too said that they are unaware of any such internal strife. However, sources in NERIST said that during the tenure of a previous in-charge director, several teaching faculty members were appointed who were not specialised in their allotted academic subjects.

Natung said that the absence of a regular director has caused severe academic loss. Over a dozen students pursuing their PhD have discontinued their research in the last four years. He also said that funds are hard to come by when it comes to upgrading laboratory equipment in several departments of the institute.

Internal strife or not, politics certainly isn’t far behind. Natung said that student wings of mainstream political parties have tried to politicise the issue by blaming each other for the delay.

Sources in NERIST also said that the institute is more focused on the construction of new buildings rather than upgrading academic infrastructure, such as the three guest houses that the institute has.

On March 1, frustrated with the delay, Kipa Tachak, a student of the institute, sat outside the main gates of NERIST and began an indefinite hunger strike. Tachak was so agitated that he even refused to listen to pleas of withdrawing his hunger strike from his friends. Reportedly, anyone who tried to persuade him to withdraw his strike, including faculty members and politicians, was met with a simple question: Have you brought in a director?

Tachak had to be taken to a hospital. As he recovers along with others who joined him, several other students from across the eight north-eastern states have joined the relay hunger strike, taking turns to make their voices heard, sitting or lying on beds through the cold, wet nights.

Over the course of the past four years, several promises were made; the latest one by state education minister, Honchung Ngandam, who said that Javadekar spoke to him over the phone on Friday evening, assuring to issue an appointment order for the post of a permanent director by Monday.

The students’ though, are not holding their breath. Natung informed that the protest will continue until an actual order is issued. If that does not happen, the SUN has warned of blockading the national highway that runs outside the main campus on Wednesday.