The curious case of Nitish Kumar

It wouldn't be wrong to say that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seems to be one of the most confused politician of recent time. Few months before the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Nitish played the biggest gamble of his political life and broke all ties with alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party opposing the elevation of Narendra Modi as the PM face of NDA. That decision was part of his optimism stemmed from favorable reports he was receiving from ground that by doing so he would get total support from Muslims which in turn pay him rich electoral dividend.

The actual verdict showed that Nitish was way off the mark in his political assessment and ended up with 2 seats in Loksabha elections. A thumping BJP win on the other hand in Bihar, even with a realignment of rivals, will give it positive vibes heading into a series of assembly elections this year and create a strong launchpad for Bihar in 2015.

In 2005, the JDU-BJP combine scripted a new chapter in Bihar’s history by ending Lalu’s 15-year reign and formed government with the agenda of ‘Good Governance’. Nitish’s first reign (2005-10) focused on improving law and order, strengthening institutions weakened by Lalu’s regime, and removing political interference from the State’s bureaucratic machinery. As law and order improved, Muslims became confident that an NDA regime wouldn’t discriminate against them and women felt safer on the streets.

There is no doubt that Nitish Kumar has brought a positive change in Bihar and because of that people had started seeing in a bigger role that too in center. But time has changed now, BJP along with Ramvilas Paswan’s LJP is in power in center while Nitish enjoying power with the support of same Lalu Prasad Yadav for whom he used to say that during the RJD regime, people seldom ventured out in the night hours but under his regime, people were on the streets even after midnight.

Elections are pending in Bihar this year and Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad are in "undo-the-past" mode. Realizing their opponent would go overboard on reminding people of their past enmity, the bitter have started persuading people that the past would not be repeated. On the first day of 2015, Nitish pledged he would not allow the "Jungle Raj" (lawlessness) to resurface despite taking Lalu in his boat. Today, Lalu urged masses not to be scared of him.

Nitish’s sanguinity is solely based on electoral arithmetic. A combined Janata Parivar is expecting votes from, among others, Yadavs, Kurmis, Mahadalits, Muslims and Most Backward Classes (MBCs). These groups together constitute nearly 60 per cent of the state’s population. Interestingly, last two election cycles (2004 and 2009) have shown that there is 50 per cent probability of assembly elections following the trend of the preceding Lok Sabha elections.

Whatever may be the result, there is no doubt that Lalu Yadav will surely manage to gain something out of it. Also, BJP will retain its upper caste votes and will manage to get some of the vote from other castes because of anti-incumbency and Modi’s charisma among the youth. But the real mystery of this whole show revolves around Nitish Kumar. He may or may not, get enough seats for third consecutive time but one battle he is set to lose is the clash of perception.

There was a time when Nitish was seen as a person of high integrity having clean image. But now his association with Lalu Yadav is raising several questions among the people of Bihar. Even if Nitish manages to win Bihar this time, he will never be able to get back the badge of ‘Susashan Purush’ at the national level. Some of Nitish' supporters seem to feel that Lalu has become bit of a burden on the Bihar CM now. Their alliance is weighing Nitish down heavily and may erode his supporter base. Also, It is understood that Lalu is backing Nitish for an anti-BJP front, not as him as the CM.  The BJP leaders are amused by the alliance of Lalu and Nitish and they can be seen saying very often that “After the alliance with the RJD, the government is providing patronage to criminals”.

Brand Nitish and brand Lalu evoke contrasting responses in Bihar. Even after years of dilution, they retain their appeal across the state. Merger of contrasting brands tend to create confusion. Biharis are still clueless about what will the merged brand stand for. Will it be closer to brand Nitish with a clear focus on development? Or will the brand Lalu that has so far stood for a particular kind of social justice and communal harmony prevail? If the confusion persists, people may find it hard to identify with the merged entity.

IIT Jodhpur: Hub of agitation not education

Recently, Chairman of IIT Bombay’s Board of Governors Anil Kakodkar said he had resigned because he did not want to be part of the selection process of IIT directors which was “too casual” and like “running a lottery”. He didn’t name but we all know HRD Minister Mrs. Smriti Irani was his target.

Indian Institute of Technology, commonly known as IITs are India’s finest technical institutions but these days, they are in news for wrong reasons. One of the recently opened among 15 IITs, IIT Jodhpur is facing the heat these days, as the students and the faculty members are demanding institute’s Director Prof. C.V.R. Murty resignation accusing him of dictatorship, egotism, autocracy, and favoritism.

For the last 1.5 years, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur has not seen even single permanent faculty recruitment while as many as 16 faculty members have been sacked. IIT-J students are protesting against the dismal situation of the institute and are demanding termination of the ‘Dictator’ Director. IIT Jodhpur has a faculty-student ratio of 1:18 as against the IIT requirement of 1:8.

IIT Jodhpur has witnessed 4 student protests during the tenure of the current director. A dialogue was initiated for negotiations where minutes of the meetings were not recorded even after repeated requests. Moreover, the dialogue concluded with promises being made that were never fulfilled.

Competent and faculty members conducting phenomenal research are terminated and their places are not filled in for. Moreover, the faculty members are subjected to mental harassment and such in hostile circumstances have been are created that the faculties are left with no option but to resign. It is needless to say, that research cannot be carried out in such a non-conducive environment where the scientists of the institute have to undergo a tremendous and constant emotional trauma, mental stress. They are blatantly disrespected and their research is termed as unnecessary and inconsequential by the director himself.

Director has exhibited several instances of taking out personal vengeance on the students and faculty who have raised their voice. For instance, Ranveer, A PhD student was not given who was the Secretary, Student’s Gymkhana the requisite NoC for continuing his research work under the faculty who resigned and joined IIT Kharagpur (Dr. Bibhas; refer to 1.2). In another case a student could not pursue his internship in a prestigious company because he was not given his NoC for reasons unknown.

Two most ingenious hardware labs at IIT Jodhpur were closed down; the guides of the PhD students have been recklessly terminated. Their years of research were discredited and they were asked to change their domain of research and a new PhD guide within a week. It is common knowledge that the PhD is pursued in a very niche / exclusive domain and more often than not, the guide cannot be replaced for, leaving the students helpless and highly uncertain about the future direction of their research. Some students have had to change their guides 3-4 times. There is another case wherein a PhD student who went to Japan for an internship was kept in dark about the specifics of the guidelines regarding the internship and was eventually terminated for no fault of his.

Even for tiniest of issues, direct approval from the director is necessary. For instance, arranging local transport for a guest speaker under the Gymkhana and its budget. Even the Coordinator, Student’s Affairs does not have the authority to make the approval. Moreover, when and if the document does reach the directorate; grammatical, indentation and formatting errors are pointed out and permission letters are sent back for redrafting, even 20 times in some cases. As a consequence, several workshops / lectures were canceled because budget and (or) permissions for them could not be obtained at the required time.

The System Science program at IIT Jodhpur was established in 2011, under the leadership of the then Director, Prof. PK Kalra. With a sanctioned strength of 40. The first batch, which will be graduating in May 2015, has performed exceptionally well on all fronts. In the ongoing placement season, 70% of the students have already been placed, in renowned companies. Several other students, have also obtained admits for MS from prominent universities around the world. However, Prof. Murty’s taking over has proved a death-blow to the program. With 20 faculty members, Center of Excellence in Systems Science was the largest faculty group in IIT Jodhpur, but today, it has become 4 faculty members only, due to the frequent terminations, and resignations by faculty members citing harassment by Prof. Murty had proposed the closure of the center in early 2014, and stopping intake to the programs, which was opposed by the then Academic Senate. However, he managed to get a reduction in its strength and send a negative word to the public about the program. However, in November 2014, the Board of Governors, on Prof. Murty’s suggestions, chose to close the center, which was communicated to the stakeholder as late as February 2015.

Prof. P.K. Kalra took steps right in 2011 to establish an incubator for startups and
to promote entrepreneurship. But Prof. Murty closed down the incubator, which was inaugurated by the Hon. President of India and the former Education Minister. He never gave any public statement as to why, or that he is closing it down. Instead, the companies which were being incubated there were not given the entire funding that they were promised. And also, any money spent on these companies has been deducted from salaries of the staff, which were responsible for the incubator.

When contacted, Students of IIT Jodhpur complained that there have been repeated successful attempts to curb their freedom and suppress their protests. Following a student protest a “code of conduct” was introduced that violates an individual’s right to speech and association. Students were made to end their protests by making promises that have not yet been fulfilled. As an attempt to curb the social media buzz against the current protests, the “higher authorities” blocked access to twitter and facebook on the institute network on April 3, 2015.

Agitating students of IIT Jodhpur have appealed to President Pranab Mukherjee and the HRD Ministry to remove Director CVR Murti for his “dictatorial attitude” to ensure the growth of the institute and putting the academics and research back on track. After lot of consultations, HRD ministry tried to sort out the matter by sending a 3 member committee to IIT Jodhpur but that too went in vain. Anger among agitating students are still high and they are not ready for any compromise.

Note: I did this story for Janta Ka Reporter and the original story can be read at given link: http://www.jantakareporter.com/india/iit-jodhpur-hub-of-agitation-not-education