Who silenced everyone?

While filling up hundred and fifty posts of professors in JJ School of Art and three other government art colleges, the corrupt officer of the Higher and Technical Education Department has successfully implemented this recruitment process without even giving any prior intimation to those who are currently working as in-charge or permanent principals in these four art colleges. We currently keep this entire recruitment process on the operation table of ‘Chinha’. And we are going to dissect it thoroughly. This is another article in the same series…

The officer in the Higher and Technical Education Department who conspired to fill up nearly 150 posts of professors through the Public Service Commission did not even mind the Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakantada Patil. Chandrakantdada Patil had expressed the opinion that the posts of professors in the two art colleges namely JJ School of Art and JJ Institute of Applied Art should be filled by the advice of all those who made the whole Denovo process work instead of through the Public Service Commission. That is, half of the one hundred and fifty posts have to be filled by the people related to Denovo, while the remaining half of the seats, that is, the seats for Government Arts College, at Nagpur and Sambhajinagar should be filled by the Public Service Commission, Dada had stated firmly. But without recording his opinion in the minutes of meeting, the officer made a change in the minutes that all the posts should be filled by the Public Service Commission. And then the next process steps he took on the war footing.

The callous officer had an idea that if the final letter of Denovo approval comes from the UGC, he will not be able to fill all these posts through the Public Service Commission and whatever black money could be raised from it, won’t materialize. Due to this fear, he took quick steps and prepared all the documents and completed the process of professor recruitment in just 23 days. Changing the minutes of meeting record in this way is a very serious act, but we wonder why Chandrakantada Patil did not take any action in this regard.

Of course, given the political chaos that is going on in Maharashtra, it is possible for the politicians to have not being able to following up the decision taken by them. (and it is our universal experience that it is happening to almost everyone) and that situation is being exploited by these nefarious bureaucrats to change the decisions to their advantage and make huge financial gains from it. 148 seats are to be filled, so even if at least 10-15 lakhs are extorted from each person, this amount goes into many crores, from which we can discern why these officials do all this. Why the Secretary of Education doesn’t intervene in such a matter is beyond the understanding of all of us.

What has happened to the Mantralaya has happened to other stakeholders as well. Let’s see how.. For example, this proposal was prepared to fill the posts of professors in these four government arts colleges. But while doing that, would the in-charges or permanent principals of these four arts colleges have been consulted? The answer to this question is also ‘No’. That is, those for whom you are going to fill these one hundred fifty posts, should they not have been at least asked, what kind of candidates do you want? What should be their minimum qualification? What subjects should they be able to teach? What should be their educational credentials?

If we are filling these positions after almost 40 years, the major changes that have taken place in the world in the last 40 years, for example globalization, computerization after globalization, internet was invented after computerization. After the invention of the internet, it literally brought about a huge revolution in visual arts, applied arts, painting. Are you going to choose the artists or art students who were influenced by this revolution to teach the new art? Or are you going to select those teachers who continue with the same old teaching methodology (which is currently going on)? Is the Education Minister going to ask these questions to those despicable attitude officers of the higher and technical education department? If the Education Minister is not going to ask, will the Deputy Chief Minister and the Chief Minister at least ask? If they too are not going to ask this, will the Governor of Maharashtra at least ask them this?

I have heard that the current Governor of Maharashtra has done a lot of work in the field of art, I have also heard that very soon he is going make many art related happenings not only in Maharashtra but also in Mumbai in the vicinity of the Raj Bhavan. Shouldn’t he ask this question to the concerned? Is this not his responsibility? Or is he here only to sign the drafts? Whenever he will set up any art related work, he will have to call upon these same 150 professors who would have got recruited through corruption. Is he going get those works done by those art teachers who would have gotten selected by doing corrupt practices worth lakhs of rupees through that senior officer in the higher and technical education department through two very lowly officers in the art directorate? These people, who have no educational credentials and are selected only by the lure of money, are literally playing havoc in the Directorate of Art. If more 150 teachers who come from this corrupt method are added to it, then we will see a complete collapse of art education in Maharashtra in the next 10 years.

Satish Naik

Editor, Chinha Art News