Shillong, Nov 29: NEHUTA has accused NEHU VC PS Shukla for being a political appointee and vitiating the atmosphere in NEHU.
NEHUTA on November 29 petitioned the Secretary, Union Ministry of Education against Shukla.
The response of NEHUTA is after the Vice Chancellor accused the protestors for creating disturbance in NEHU.
Shukla had also written to Secretary, Union Ministry of Education.
Full text of the letter below
Dated: 29th November, 2024
To
The Secretary
Higher Education
Government of India
New Delhi
Sub: Rebuttal from NEHU Teachers’ Association on the accusations of Prof. P. S. Shukla,
VC, NEHU.
Dear Sir,
In response to the letter of Prof. Prabha Shankar Shukla, Vice Chancellor, NEHU (who
is on leave), dated 27/11/2024 to the Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Government of
India, New Delhi, where he tried to blame the current crisis in NEHU, Shillong on NEHUTA,
NEHUSU, KSU, State government/State Police, etc. instead of blaming himself, NEHUTA
would like to strongly condemn his irresponsible statements with a malafide intention to defame the NEHUTA, all other stakeholders of the NEHU and the entire state of Meghalaya. Prof. Shukla is trying to blame NEHU teachers, which is not acceptable and hence the Association is forced to question Prof. Shukla’s academic credentials.
It is pertinent to state how Prof. P. S. Shukla was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor by keeping aside much more qualified shortlisted candidates. He was a pure political appointee. As he implored upon ongoing performance of every faculty, it is indeed necessary to appraise in the public domain what are his academic and research contributions, publications and other such research related works that are noteworthy. To our utter dismay, while Prof. P. S. Shukla does
not have any, he keeps undermining and decrying contributions of NEHU faculty. On the one hand he claimed credit for QS ranking and on the other he keeps downgrading faculty research and contributions. Indeed, in more than three years of his tenure as a VC, he has neither invested any resource to promote academics and research not brought any funds except paying lip service to research and academics in the University. A political appointee VC like Prof. P. S. Shukla
has seriously let down every section of the university community and every aspect of its
academic, research, financial and administrative responsibilities leading to huge mess for which students, teachers and non-teaching and larger Meghalaya public had to resort of protests and agitations declaring him as persona non grata, who is no longer welcome to step into NEHU and Meghalaya. He is totally oblivious of NEHU, Meghalaya and the North-Eastern region’ss socio-cultural ethos and ecosystems.
It is because of his non-understanding and mishandling of the situation as reflected in his
careless statements of blaming faculty and others for slide of rank in NIRF and his response to students’ demands for immediate removal of erring officials like Registrar and Deputy Registrar that hunger strike happened with all its consequential deleterious effect on health of students, for which he alone remains responsible. It is because of his adamant and arrogant nonresponse that the situation escalated to this level and to hide his own incompetence he is indulging into a game of blame by shifting and targeting teachers, students and non-teaching employees and their Associations and Unions, which are important statutory bodies of elected
representatives under NEHU Act which was duly passed by the honorable Parliament. The
falling NIRF ranking of NEHU is due to the gross mismanagement of NEHU’s affair at every level by Prof. Shukla. His entire tenure so far is marked by the propagation of mediocracy and murder of meritocracy. He rewarded an underperforming person a second term as Dean of School of Social Sciences denying much more productive 20 odd professors down the line
waiting for their turn to come by the rule of ‘seniority by rotation’. Similarly, he denied
Deanship in School of Economics, Management and Information Sciences to very productive professors. There are many such glaring injustices and willful violations of the ‘Right to Equality’ under Article 14, 15 & 16 of our Constitution. His actions vitiated the academic atmosphere of NEHU resulting in the current crisis for which, only he has to be blamed.
Prof. P. S. Shukla mixed too many lies and half-truths in his responses to the Inquiry Committee as well as in the Annexures that he appended. First of all, a bare look at these shows that the colourful letterhead on which Prof. P. S. Shukla has written the letter is not signed by him, but his signature is copy pasted by somebody else. This is the level of his willful omission and commission with which he goes to the public and authorities to level unsubstantiated baseless charges and casting biased aspersions on individual faculty members. Secondly, no faculty individually operated in the protest and agitation as their participation in the role of members and office bearers of Teachers’ Association called NEHUTA is a matter of their right and dignity, especially when a VC like Prof. P. S. Shukla fails to address a single issue. Therefore, Prof. P.S. Shukla targeting individual teachers and office bearers of the Teachers’ Association only goes onto show his mental and psychological disconnect from NEHU as he failed to gauge how students have protested to his utter inability to respond to any and all of the issues by holding satyagraha before his office in the form of hunger strike for sixteen continuous days.
It is most disparaging on the part of Prof. P. S. Shukla to term ‘hunger strike’ as a ‘drama’ in
his write-up, as probably he is not at all aware why students have protested after submitting
memorandums and letters from all stakeholder Associations including Teachers’ raising the demand of removal of appointment of unqualified and incompetent ones in the important posts of the University. The total loss of confidence by the community on Prof. P. S. Shukla and his team of incompetent and unqualified officials hasn’t touched him at all as amply reflected in his gross undermining and derogatory statement belittling everyone in the University and in the
state of Meghalaya.
NEHU had its gold standard in regimes of Vice-Chancellors like Prof. Barrister Pakem, Prof. Mrinal Miri, Prof. Tandon and Prof. A. N. Rai who built up not only infrastructure but promoted academics and research at national and international level with everyone’s support. This is how NEHU created a very successful academic and infrastructural behemoth, which was slowly brought down during the interregnum of absence of regular VC and then by Prof. Sri Krishna Srivastava. In this stead decline of last 12 years of so, a political appointee like Prof. P. S. Shukla without much academic credentials and administrative experience to his side miserably failed to create any growth in academic and infrastructure. To be precise, he started belittling contributions of every faculty and vitiated the atmosphere so much that no serious academic, research and project work was not promoted. Prof. P. S. Shukla only selectively promoted
certain individuals of his choice who hardly could create any growth and dynamism. Wherever any faculty carried out serious work had to face regular obstacles from Prof. P. S. Shukla by way of red-tapism and uncalled for objections. Therefore, academic and research Departments, Centers and other such Cells could barely function to its optimum. Prof. P. S. Shukla became the biggest hurdle in getting any project, conference or international work/visit barely passed through official channels of the University which he systematically blocked for everyone. A bare inquiry shall reveal umpteen such disruptions and infarctions created by Prof. P. S. Shukla that is compounded by his abysmal failure to improve upon hostel, library, sports, food and all other essential infrastructure that keeps the University going.
Prof. Shukla incompetence and incapabilities led to the disruption of the Academic Council and he dared to blame it on selected teachers who are esteemed members of the AC. Although he has been VC for the last 3 years but he still does not know that NEHUTA as a body is not partbof the AC. Teachers are there as members by virtue of being Professors as per statutory provisions and not as NEHUTA members. His lack of understanding of NEHU Act, Statutes
and Ordinances compelled him to spread misinformation and lies which we have seen for the last three years. How he spreads lies is amply shown by last minute action of conduct of
Executive Council in absentia to name some faculty as Pro-VCs which has been demanded by the University community by last three years. Only after agitation begun, he took the desperate step of conduct of such appointments in a manner that is deemed to be null and void, as the meeting of the Executive Council didn’t even have necessary quorum as per NEHU Statute.
His patently crass and abusive naming of the faculty with false stories and epithets accusing them of creating this movement is factually incorrect and improper as he mishandled the
situation completely with his denials and arrogant negativity towards the demands and similarly in all matters related to cooperating with faculty, in which he backed out and now started blame shifting on teachers for the entire mountain of failures. He failed to assess the gravity of the
situation that led to the students resorting to hunger strike and, in the process, the entire NEHU fraternity have lost trust in his ability to continue as VC of NEHU. He misread and mishandled the entire crisis since he is mentally and physically detached from NEHU’s affair. His entire tenure so far can be summed up as a toxic mixture of lies and half-truth.
The VC jumped the gun by expressing his sweet will to return in the middle of due process of inquiry when the Committee appointed by the Ministry is seized with issues of NEHU and going to submit its report. While we are all eagerly waiting for the report, his proclamation that he would like to join NEHU on 2/12/2024 while his conduct as the VC is under investigation by the Inquiry Committee shows that Prof. Shukla ridiculed the Ministry and perhaps, thinks that he is above it. Moreover, as a habitual liar, he tried to misled everyone by falsely claiming that the NEHU Inquiry Report was prepared under the Chairmanship of Prof. Lakhon Kma to tarnish
the reputation of NEHUTA and its members and the Acting VC Prof. N. Saha (Annexure 5).
Meanwhile, Prof. P. S. Shukla came out with such an unsubstantiated abrasive public statement to further create rift, tension and chaos on the University so that he can sadistically enjoy the pain that he inflicted on the University community from a distance. This sensationalism and irresponsible act of Prof. P. S. Shukla is further reflected in his abrasive assertion that non-tribal
teachers are threatened during the agitation. Such a statement is intended to create rift in the University between tribal and non-Tribal teachers with a communal intent which again shows how Prof. Shukla is psychologically completely deranged. No man ever in his senses can create such animosity. We have raised from spectra of communal flare-up and violence in NEHU and Meghalaya and he is restarting it through his communally charged statements. NEHUTA strongly condemns Prof. P. S. Shukla for such heinous statements and divisive tactics. His action shows once again how incompetent he is as VC who does not how to command any respect from any quarter. His complete failure to handle academic council resulted in pandemonium in
academic council as could not handle a single issue raised by esteem members.
The job of President or Vice President or any office bearers of NEHUTA is not to be cozy with the VC. Its role is to protect the interest of the teachers and the welfare of the university at large and also to provide check and balance to the functioning of the VC so that democratic norms are not trampled. NEHUTA will not shy away from confronting Prof. Shukla or any other VC whenever NEHU Act, Statutes, Ordinances, Regulations and Rules, UGC Regulation 2018, UGC Model CRR for Non-Teaching staff, best practices and precedencies are broken or under
threats. At the same time, NEHUTA dares Prof. Shukla for an open debate on all the allegations he has made to tarnish the image of NEHUTA in front of media and camera any day as we have been demanding earlier so that truth can prevail. Interestingly, he has admitted to members of the media in presence of huge gathering of students that he had been biased during the selection
of faculty positions and other officials as the Chairman of Selection Committees.
To conclude, the NEHUTA reiterates that Prof. P. S. Shukla is only making a diversionary
statement filled with lies and half-truths in all his responses and leveling baseless allegations on individual faculty members and NEHUTA, which is a responsible statutory association of teachers, with a degraded motive of being vengeful as everyone in the community rejected his incompetence and arrogance. Finding no way to save his skin, he is creating such baseless and unfounded allegations to sensationalize and defend his own indefensible omissions and commissions, all catalogued and put on record by various stakeholders. Therefore, the
NEHUTA appeals to the community and larger public to be vigilant upon Prof. Shukla’s antics
and we leave it to better judgment of everyone concerned so that NEHU can come back to its
pristine glory and peaceful academic life.
(Prof. Lakhon Kma) President
(Dr. Marbhador M. Khymdeit)
General Secretary
