Agartala: Two months after Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb promised 10,323 school teachers who had been sacked in 2014 that he would find a permanent solution for their issues, the teachers concerned have been sitting in an indefinite demonstration to draw the government’s attention to their demands. The demonstration began on December 7.
The teachers are demanding that the ruling BJP government honour its pre-polls promise to provide them with permanent government employment should they win the 2018 assembly elections. So far, the government appears uninterested in the teachers’ demands.
Ad hoc arrangements
The 10,323 teachers – of whom 76 have died since 2014 – have had a convoluted history of government employment.
Recruited between 2010 and 2014 by Tripura’s earlier Left Front government, the teachers had been sacked in 2014 after the Tripura high court, based on complaints filed by other candidates for the teachers’ posts, found irregularities in their recruitment and declared the process unconstitutional.
Despite the fact that they had been removed from government employment, however, the teachers concerned had not actually been out of work until this April thanks to the Supreme Court, which upheld the Tripura high court’s order in March 2017, but consented to the state government’s request to allow the teachers to continue working to avoid a shortage of staff in Tripura’s government schools.
The teachers were not reinstated in their jobs, however. The Supreme Court simply permitted them to work on an ad hoc basis, even granting them a six-month extension of service after their collective retirement date of January 1, 2018.
In 2017-18, when the BJP began campaigning for Tripura’s assembly elections, it promised these 10,323 teachers permanent government jobs should the party come to power. In May 2018, the BJP-ruled state government duly applied to the Supreme Court to extend the service of these 10,323 teachers and on November 1, the apex court granted them an extension till March 2020.
Last November and December, the government of Tripura offered the teachers a chance to enter the recruitment process again and interview for 9,000 vacant posts in various government departments, including 3,970 in the education department, 2,500 among non-technical multi-tasking staff, 1,500 clerical posts and more than 950 other non-technical clerical positions. But the teachers did not find this acceptable.
“It would be not possible to sit the exam in such circumstances,” said Bijoy Krishna Saha, one of the teachers participating in the demonstration. “Moreover, the posts were created not only for the 10,323 of us, but also for other unemployed people. Since we have already served for many years, we do not believe it is logical for us to sit the recruitment exams again.”
A march organised by the teachers in Agartala in September. Photo: By arrangement
Sit down and protest
Since April 2020, the teachers have been out of work. While some were appointed to other government posts after the requisite recruitment processes, 8,882 of them are suffering financial instability.
After a series of protests in Tripura’s capital, Agartala, including mass demonstrations in front of the civil secretariat, at least ten of the teachers were injured on September 23, when the police lathi-charged them, fired tear gas shells and deployed water cannons on them during a protest march.
After this incident, a group of the teachers met chief minister Biplab Deb, who assured them that he would have a solution within two months.
When, after two months, the teachers had heard nothing from the government, they created a forum called the Joint Movement Committee of 10,323 (JMC), comprising members of three organisations, Justice for 10323, All Tripura Ad Hoc Teachers Association and Amra 10,323, which organised an indefinite sit-in, demanding a permanent solution for all the teachers via direct postings.
“The chief minister’s words have no value and so we must have this indefinite mass demonstration,” said Dalia Das, leader of Amra 10323 and functionary of the JMC. Dalia claimed that the 76 teachers who had died had been laid low by stress and mental trauma and that eight among them had died in the last two months. The teachers are also demanding jobs for the family members of their late colleagues under the ‘die in harness’ scheme.
According to Bimal Saha, another teacher participating in the demonstration, the 10,323 teachers have been cheated by both the previous government and the present one. “If our demands are not met, we will not lift our demonstration,” he said.
In an open letter, Manik Sarkar, former chief minister of Tripura and present leader of the opposition, said: “Even though the deadline given by the chief minister has passed, the government has not taken any specific steps to re-employ the sacked teachers.”
Sarkar claimed the problem could be solved if the state government revived the 13,000 non-teaching posts created in May 2017 by the previous Left Front government in Tripura, which had been stayed by the Supreme Court after it heard a petition that challenged the process and recruitment rules of the posts. However, the Supreme Court has shown no sign of vacating the stay order.
Meanwhile, Ratan Lal Nath, the state law and education minister, said that the government had done enough for the teachers ever since it had come to power, by seeking and acquiring an age relaxation in the state’s recruitment processes until March 31, 2023, to allow those among the teachers who are past their retirement age to apply for alternative jobs in government departments. The state has also granted an age relaxation for the general population till December 31, 2020, to make up for the months of lockdown at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year.
“The teachers should apply for the 9,000 posts we have offered them instead of protesting against the government. They should prepare for the recruitment exams without wasting time,” said Nath.