Madhya Pradesh: Protesting Women Guest Teachers Tonsure Their Head, Celebrate Black Holi

Women atithi vidwan or guest faculty protesting at the Shahjahani Park in Bhopal sacrificed their hair demanding regularization of their jobs on the occasion of International Women's day.

The guest faculty who have been protesting for the past 72 days have now stood against the exploitative policies of the government shaved their heads as a sign of protest on March 8 and celebrated Kali Holi on Tuesday. The protest started from December 2 from Chhindwara and has been continuing on since then.

The guest faculties are nothing but the ad-hoc teachers who were brought in to fill the vacant positions in the government colleges. The previous BJP government led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan gave them the title atithi vidwan. Being appointed as ad-hoc teachers, they receive less salary as compared to the regular faculties. When the Kamal Nath government came to power, they had promised to regularise them. But nothing has been done so far.

Dr Shaheen Khan, a woman guest faculty from Chhindwara, tonsured her head along with other college guest teachers as a symbol of protest to press for their demand for regularisation.

The protest took a critical turn when a guest sports teacher, Sanjay Kumar, committed suicide last month. With no financial aid from the government, the family of the deceased and the other guest faculty decided to start tonsuring their heads to prompt the State to take actions.

About 4,500 guest faculty put up a fight against the Kamal Nath government when they were thrown out of jobs after the Public Service Commission(PSC) handed over appointment letters to some of them for the post of assistant professors, reported, News18.

Convener Surjit Bhadauria said that the association had invited several ministers and officers. The Free Press Journal reported Bhadauria saying, "They should come to the venue and witness the extent of rage being experienced by the guest faculty. The womenfolk have reached a stage where they are ready to sacrifice their most possessed thing-the hair."

The guest faculty met with the representatives of the Rajya Karamchari Ayog with dissatisfying results. The Ayog representatives said that it had to decide if the matter fell under his jurisdiction.

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