New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor Kavita Singh, who was awarded the prestigious Infosys Prize 2018 on Saturday, was denied leave by the administration to participate in the ceremony in Bengaluru. Nonetheless, she attended the award ceremony.
Singh is the dean of JNU’s School of Arts and Aesthetics.
She received the Infosys award for her “extraordinarily illuminating study” of Mughal, Rajput and Deccan art and her “insightful writing” on museums in today’s world. The administration, however, is yet to even extend congratulations to the professor. The Indian Express quoted her as saying, “Since I’ve won the award, I haven’t received a word of congratulations from the vice-chancellor – whom I personally wrote to inform of the news – or any senior administrative official, barring the director of admissions. The information hasn’t even been uploaded on the JNU website.”
After the allegations came to the surface, she said that the JNU administration “misinformed” media portals claiming that they wrote to her to seek clarification on her application.
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According to a PTI report, professor Chintamani Mahapatra, Rector-I of the university was quoted as saying, “Certain kind of leaves are not a right. In many cases, professors apply late at night or after 5:30 pm when the office closes. She had applied for vacation leave/casual leave on Monday, we wrote to her to clarify on the kind of leave.”
JNU admin’s misinformation
Contradicting the statements, she informed the media that she had applied for “combination leave” on January 2, 2019 through university’s e-office system, seeking “vacation leave” for January 3 and “casual leave” for the 4th.
According to Singh, in rejecting her leave request, vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar had added a note saying: “Leaves [of a] certain nature are conditional subject to the faculty member complying with the attendance rule as per the decision of statutory bodies.”
She said that her application did not violate the administrative protocol and was supported by all the necessary documents. “Casual leave is something you can even mark later, after you have taken off for some urgent work. But since I am the dean, I wanted to mark in advance because I had to also name the acting dean while I was away so they might sign the routine papers that might crop up,” Singh was quoted by Scroll.in as saying.
Previous cases of institutional apathy
The administration has denied her leaves on several occasions in the past. She was also debarred from the university’s academic council.
Singh told the media that she was denied duty leave for December 3-4 when she wished to attend a conference at the India International Centre in Delhi.
She has been offered a three-month fellowship at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles from April-July 2019 and a three-week visiting professorship by the University of Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia in July. But her application, which she submitted in May 2018, was kept pending till October 2018 and then rejected without explanation.
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According to the Telegraph, she was barred from JNU’s academic council even when she tried taking part in the discussion. The teachers’ association said last year: “While all attempts made by her (Singh) to be allowed to make her point… in the AC meeting held on 18.5.2018 were turned down by the Chair… her subsequent attempts to make herself heard were construed as… misconduct and misuse of a high administrative position….”
According to the Indian Express, on March 15, 2018, Singh and about six other deans/chairpersons were removed for not implementing the mandatory attendance system in their respective schools/centres. However, a month later, the Delhi high court reinstated Singh and four chairpersons after they filed a petition contesting the administration’s decision to make attendance compulsory for students.
Because of all this, she decided to apply for a casual leave, because according to her, such a leave cannot be denied. But the administration rejected the application yet again.