Hushing Up Jaffna University Tree Theft – Regime Vs. Quality
University of Jaffna | Photo via Facebook University of Jaffna
(Compiled by Dr. Rajan Hoole)FEBRUARY 25, 2018
(Compiled by Dr. Rajan Hoole)FEBRUARY 25, 2018
Tagore gave an apt aphorism for an ideal university: “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high. Where knowledge is free…Where words come out from the depth of truth.” It demands expeditious action against unfairness and malpractice. In contrast, our university system permits sycophants to take control and confine power to protégés.
Jaffna University should have spearheaded the renewal of the North, opened its doors wide to fresh talent and advanced a bold reappraisal of the past. It demanded an objective history of the militant era, as in other societies that have found their way out of a hideous patch. Our scholars and intelligentsia have failed at home or have lost themselves overseas. By default ultranationalist ideology holds sway, to which dons and even vice chancellors pay lip service, as on Thileepan and Maveerar-Days. Academics pretend not to know the deceit and cynicism behind the heroic legends, nor do they care about the myriads of children and conscripts deceived into giving life and limb for the leaders’ treachery at Mullivaikkal.
While LTTE ideology gives the university a brittle nationalistic facade, university management follows the EPDP’s legacy. LTTE control was ambient; the EPDP relied on executive power delegated by the President to control appointments and elections. It was evident in the way the 2014 VC election was scripted and how the executive apparatus was used by the incumbent powers to block a promising overseas VC candidate in 2017. (Click here and here) It left in place a mafia of deans and top administrators, who shield one another’s abuses, particularly in keeping out quality recruits. The fault-lines of the system become palpable in the forest-cutting fiasco which misguided two angry deans, favourites of the former VC, to harass a minor employee Janatheepan, Supervisor-Maintenance.
The Council, administration and academics having rubber-stamped EPDP appointments, intensified corruption with registrars, academics and even the Vice Chancellor going to the EPDP office for instructions. EPDP’s favourites saw no limits to their authority.
We illustrate the cosy relationship between the EPDP and university administrators toeing its line: Tharmaseelan testified that on 30-7-2014 he was introduced to EPDP Secretary-Killinochchi by N. Sutharshan, Supervisor-Civil, Killinochchi Campus. The EPDP asked him to report the following day. He met the Deputy Registrar and Dean Engineering. They posted him to the Guest House at Paravipanjan and followed him there (Committee of Inquiry, 21-10-2017).
The Engineering Dean’s falling out with Janatheepan, the latter said, had to do with the Dean’s authoritarian bearing. The Dean for example ordered Janatheepan bypassing the Works Engineer: In late 2014, when he was sick, the Dean ordered him to go into the rain and deal with rising water in a ditch he opined would flood the administration. Janatheepan who disagreed, refused. On a later occasion the Dean ordered him to enter a trench under the Mechanical Lab where a cable was to be laid and look for snakes. These were problems for the Works Engineer to consult his team on a remedy. Continually harassed, Janatheepan took to excessive drink.
A memo was on 16/07/2016 surreptitiously introduced by the Registrar during the council meeting, alleging Janatheepan reported for ‘duty under the influence of liquor.’ In sacking him the Council acted on prejudice continually drummed in by the Deans of Engineering and Agriculture. That is how universities get away with gross injustice.
Prof. Tharmaratnam, an exceptionally meticulous councillor, spotted the minute and objected at the next meeting that the employee is owed a right of defence, got him reinstated and then interdicted subject to inquiry.
He agreed to Dr. Poongothai Selvarajan, Senior Lecturer, Management, Vavuniya Campus, as the inquirer. Poongothai’s report faults Dean/Engineering for exceeding his authority in harassing Janatheepan and a cooked-up written complaint to the VC bypassing the Registrar of Janatheepan’s absence, when in fact he was present.
