Colleges in Jammu and Kashmir are witnessing another phase of staff transfers. In last about a week, two to three transfer lists have surfaced, and the word is more are in offing.
One casual glance shall be enough to note that the assistant and associate professors on these lists are no lesser mortals; they are other-eyed (Blue-eyed sounds offensive.) Most of these academics have returned, prematurely, to their home districts where they had stayed long years before their transfers. How? The answer is hard to ascertain and rather easy to guess.
Almost all of them were transferred in 2023, when the government had brought in Annual Transfer Drive or ATD for the first and, eventually, the last time. The ATD, meant to be an annual exercise, required the academics to submit their details through an online portal. Those having spent over three years in one zone (a district or a cluster of districts) would be transferred to another zone. Nothing else was required to be done. No special representations, no personal meetings, no boot licking. Pretty fair!
Hand the data thus generated over to AI and the academics would be transferred objectively, year after year, without any bias or nepotism or injustice. This was the only hope for the lesser mortals who do not have any strings to pull.
In 2023, the ATD touched all subjects in colleges across J&K. Only a few, such as Fisheries, Anthropology, Mass Communication, and Music, were left out. The government didn’t explain why. Maybe a case of more other-eyed in the lot. Or, mostly-likely, the case of other-eyed preying on the suffering of the lesser mortals.
Now, the government has done away with the ATD, giving in to the reasons presented by academics who were moved, most of them for the first time, from their postings of convenience. The arguments of the other-eyed, revolving around personal choices, convenience or comfort, and gender.
Like, ATD was unjust because people were sent to districts afar. Like, female staff suffered because they were sent away from their home districts. Lame, at best.
Can someone appointed on a state-cadre post make these arguments? Can a woman working on a state-cadre post make this argument? If you can, you shall also explain why you, a man or a woman, knowingly applied for a state-cadre position.
They have been the arguments of the staff enjoying postings of convenience or choice, where they intended to stay throughout their service tenures through the might-is-right principle that otherwise applied. The ATD forced them to move, giving the lesser mortals, who were often forgotten about at far-off places irrespective of the degree of inconvenience, hope that they would be moved. If not this year, maybe the next, or the year after!
By doing away with the ATD, the government has paved away for corruption and nepotism. The other-eyed would rule; the lesser-mortals would follow the rules, as if they alone worked on state-cadre positions.
This isn’t a guess. This is what happened before the ATD.
The bigger logic is that letting a college academic stay at one place for long years ruins him as well as the institution. The academic becomes complacent; the institution begins to wither. Transfers in academics create flow of ideas and resources, letting institutions grow. The logic behind the transfer policy of an officer’s stay at a place for minimum of two and a maximum of three years.
The counter argument can be made that an academic serving at one place for, say, a decade can contribute more effectively. But what if that academic isn’t a very good resource? And the good resource is at some other place serving just one institution his entire tenure? Rotation or circulation is the best way out.
If the government is not bringing back the ATD, it shall declare who the centres of nepotism and corruption are going to be. That way the lesser mortals will know where or whom to approach with a suitcase of bribe. This way, there will be, at least, some transparency.
PS: Let this not be read as a complaint, which shall lead to a head hunt for those who contributed their ideas. Treat this as a corrective measure to counter nepotism and corruption to make room for justice. Colleges are where our precious youth prepares for their lives.
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