Faculty at IITs and IIMs are in the midst of an unprecedented protest against a new pay regime that they argue will accentuate the demise of these premier higher educational institutions.

Thousands of academics in these and other premier institutions like the National Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Information Technology as well as the Indian School of Mines (Dhanbad) have begun to participate in protest actions like sit ins, mass casual leaves, marches etc.

A news report dated August 18, 2009, in The Telegraph, Kolkata, had reported that the union cabinet had finally finalized the new pay regime for faculty of centrally funded technical institutions. The report indicated, as was proved later in the notification issued by the government on August 20, 2009, that the government had refused to meet the recommendations of the management of these institutions, which are reportedly suffering from a staff shortage of 20-30%. To add insult to injury, the government had even not followed the recommendations of the Govardhan Mehta Committee which was specifically set up to recommend the new pay scales, taking into consideration the needs to maintain these institutions of excellence and address the faculty shortage. It must be noted that the faculty of these institutions had been waiting for over a year for the benefits of the 6th Pay Commission to reach them.  As soon as the faculty of these premier institutions came to know what the government proposals were, they began to prepare strategies to fight for their rights. They took it as an attack on their dignity.

Faculty of the IITs in Kharagpur and Chennai went on mass protest casual leave beginning August 21. Faculty of IIT Bombay went on mass protest on August 24, and those of IIT Delhi on August 25. IIM Calcutta has become the first IIM to register its protest at the new pay scales, while, faculty of all the IIM’s, NIT’s IIIT’s and other institutions affected by the government notification are preparing their course of action.

“If this is what the cabinet has approved, the government is effectively saying that they do not care about retaining the best faculty at the IITs and IIMs,” the head of the faculty association of one of the IITs said.

The new regime hits the National Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Information Technology and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad ever harder. The NITs had demanded pay parity with the IITs, IIITs and ISM — where salaries are already higher than those of university teachers because of the greater market demand for teachers of technical courses. Instead, the NITs will receive the pay prescribed by the University Grants Commission for varsity teachers.

Existing faculty at IIITs and the ISM Dhanbad will continue to receive salaries on a par with the IITs and IIMs under the new regime. New teachers at these institutions will, however, receive salaries similar to UGC scales.

The government notification has the mischevious aim of making the faculty of these institutions fight each other. Thus, there has been a deliberate effort to create divisions between the IIT’s and IIM’s on one hand, and the other technical institutions. Within the IIT’s and IIM’s too, parities between faculty and administrative staff have been changed in favour of administrators.

“This notification does not address the real problem facing the IITs and IIMs — how to attract young teachers and retain current faculty. It doesn’t provide a solution to the faculty shortage problem,” a senior professor at IIM Calcutta said.

Why is the government creating dissatisfaction amongst the faculty of the premier technical and management institutions of India, in this situation? This has to do with the education policy of the UPA Government. This is to implement the recommendations of various think tanks of the capitalists of our country. Central to these recommendations is that “the market” – read the interests of the bourgeoisie — must determine the investments in education. Already, not only in technical institutions, but also in other premier institutions like the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the faculty are told to organize projects with funding by capitalists if they want to stay in the business. The demands of the capitalists is that education be a purely profit making industry, and remuneration of faculty must be according to whether they enable the bourgeoisie to make profits or not. There is no place in this scheme of things for education to serve the people.

The All IITs Teachers' Federation held its emergency meeting in Chennai on 23rd August and prepared a memorandum of demands. This has been submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Prime Minister's Office on 24 August. They have given a deadline of 4th of September 2009 to the Government to issue a fresh notification meeting their demands. The IIT teachers are determined to push for their demands and have already planned a one-day fast on 5th September, which is commemorated as Teacher's Day, where representatives of different IITs will sit on a fast.