The Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) has asked the registrar of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to submit a written reply in regards to the allegations made by JNU assistant professor Rosina Nasir, who alleged harassment and discrimination because of her minority (Muslim) identity.
Rosina Nasir said that she is being targeted because of her religious Identity. “The administration officials including the rector asked me to quit if I wanted to prosper in academia. They said I wouldn’t be allowed to continue with my work because I was a Muslim,” she told The Wire.
The Minorities Commission has asked the registrar to submit the reply by August 1, 2019, failing which, a case will be registered against vice-chancellor Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar and Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP) chairperson Yagati Chinna Rao.
Alleged Harassment And Discrimination
The 40-year-old professor, in a letter to the DMC, has accused the VC and the CSSEIP chairperson of “targeted harassment, exploitation, and discrimination”.
Nasir, who lives within the JNU campus with her husband and three-year-old son, alleged that the university administration has sent her multiple reminders in order to vacate her residential accommodation. Even her wardenship of a hostel on the basis of which she was allotted accommodation has been terminated.
Referring to Najeeb Ahmed, a JNU student, who went missing three years ago from the university hostel and is still untraceable, Nasir said, “It seems to me if I will not quit the faculty position in the CSSEIP, I will be made to disappear like Najeeb.”
Nasir is an assistant professor under the UGC’s grant-in-aid scheme at the university’s CSSEIP and has worked in JNU since 2013.
Further, she stated that in an attempt to force her to quit the job, the university stopped paying salary. “From October 2017 onwards, JNU stopped paying me salary despite the extension of CSSEIP Scheme by the UGC,” the letter states. Nasir‘s grant-in-aid scheme, after it ended on March 31, 2019, was extended till March 2020 by the UGC.
Nasir’s salary till March 2019 was released in May 2019, after she moved Delhi high court in November 2018 and subsequently won the case. However, Nasir has alleged that she has once again not received her salary since April 2019.
The University Denies Allegations
The JNU administration has denied all the allegations. “She is in the university as part of a planned project by UGC and is not a permanent employee. Her salary is issued by the UGC and not by the varsity. The UGC had not released the salary but now they have released it and she has been paid,” a university official told News18.
However, according to Section 9 (i) of the UGC guidelines for setting up of social exclusion centres the university is responsible for payment of salaries to the faculty members even if the UGC stops financial assistance.