HNLU Strike: FAULTY FOUNDATIONS

The title says enough about what this post is going to be about. Here's why -

1) The strike was not a result of a vote. The strike did not have popular support of a majority of the student community. Many students had left for home in the duration of the strike and many are relenting to pressure created by the strike leaders. Their realities have been unravelled at this blog here, here, here and here.

2) The strike started as a result of the EC rejecting the students' representations. Post the declaration of the strike, the university constituted a Grievance Redressal Committee of faculty members. The strike leaders refused to talk or let other students talk to this committee about our issues. This step puts the university on a moral highground of sorts (in lack of another appropriate description). The university can always use this as a trump card against the students - they refused to hold dialogue.

3) After the above refusal, the VC declared a sine die since the students were not ready to talk and were not attending classes. He asked the students to vacate the premises. When the buses didn't ply between the hostel and the academic campus the next day, leaders of the strike went to the university building and refused to let any person in and out of campus by use of force. An employee, Dinesh Lalwani was threatened and almost beaten up. After this, a notice was sent to the collector from the university stating that students have sabotaged the university. This is another reason which would put the students on a lower moral plane and reduce our bargaining chips.

Due to these fundamental substantive errors in the foundation stones of the strike, the university can also very well justify not giving out an official response. Since the students refused to talk to the administration through the channels created, the university administration has not yet released an official response to the situation.

There could have been RTI applications, demands for independent enquiry commissions, demands of investigations of the administration etc. However, the only measure resorted to was the most extreme one, strike.