AUD faculty hold protest over grievances outside V-C’s office in Delhi

Faculty members at Dr BR Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD) staged a protest in front of the vice-chancellor’s office at the Kashmere Gate campus on Monday against several “long-standing issues”, including alleged “punishment transfers” of faculty, demotion without reasoning, and discrimination, among others.
The varsity’s administration agreed to a meeting on August 16 to discuss and resolve all grievances, according to an AUD official. AUDFA members said that they were also contacted by the university, informing that a meeting has been scheduled with the VC at 4pm on August 16.
A letter written by the AUD Faculty Association (AUDFA) to the VC on Monday, regarding their issues and demands including alleged denial of promotion, demotion without substantial reasoning as well as gender and caste based discrimination.
“Many faculty members were denied promotion throughout the pandemic, and we all thought it was an internal matter. Once the campus completely opened in 2023 after Covid, several matters started coming to light,” said an AUDFA member, who asked not to be identified.
“Last year, one faculty member had approached the grievance cell regarding a gender- and caste-based inappropriate comment that the dean of the school had made. The member also approached the high court on the same issue, and the university was asked to enquire about it. However, the faculty member was soon given a punishment transfer to another campus,” the member quoted above added.
AUD, which has four campuses across Delhi, has about 145 permanent faculty members, about 60-70 contractual and guest faculty members and near to 200 non-teaching staff. AUDFA said while the demonstration had endorsement from over 100 teaching and non-teaching staff, about 50 faculty members took part in the sit-in protest on Monday.
A non-teaching staffer recounted similar events. “I received two separate transfer orders to two separate campuses within the span of three hours. My health was not considered either, and all because I had approached the grievance cell regarding some internal issues,” the staffer said.
AUDFA alleged that several requests for meetings with the VC had been futile since September-October 2023 and that grievance cell, equal opportunity cell and other committees have refused to acknowledge their problems. Members of the teachers’ association claimed that several emails to the VC as well as hard copies of meeting requests, submitted to the VC’s office, were never replied to.
According to AUDFA members, nearly 24 teaching staff have resigned in the past three years owing to “problems within the university” and about 20 staff have approached the Delhi high court. Members also claimed that several faculty members were demoted and asked for financial recovery.
In the letter written by AUDFA to the VC, members demanded “immediate stoppage of unfair and unjust financial recovery from faculty members, and adhering to Supreme Court ruling o this issue.”
AUD VC, Anu Singh Lather, did not comment on the protests. AUD administration has assured the protesting faculty members that a meeting will be held with the VC at 4pm on August 16 to discuss all the grievances.
Other issues put forward by the association include deplorable condition of AUD infrastructure, denial of child-care leave to women employees, late salaries top contractual faculty.
The letter also mentions, “It has been over 15 years, yet AUD still does not have a permanent campus.”
An office-bearer of AUDFA said that AUD received funds for the construction of the Dheerpur and Rohini campuses. “There has been a huge delay but it cannot be due to fund crunch. Even the financial recovery that is being demanded from teachers cannot be due to fund crunch as this is a state-government university,” he said.
AUDFA demanded immediate revocation of the punishment transfers on Monday. “The accused deans should step down as well. We will start a relay hunger strike from Tuesday, as a sign of escalation of the matter,” said the office-bearer.
Several student organisations in AUD, like SFI, AISA, AUD queer collective, Krantikari Yuva Samiti have expressed solidarity with the protesting faculty members. “We also have a separate charter of demands, including student representation. We have not had student elections for three years now. We intend to present our demands on Tuesday,” said a PhD student and an SFI member.