How Heads Are Replaced

Padma Devkota

How Heads Are Replaced

I discovered from The Himalayan Times August 4, 2004 that I had been replaced by Professor Chandra Prakash Sharma as the Head of the Central Department of English, TU, Kirtipur. I should have been the first to receive this information from the concerned TU authorities, not the press. What code of conduct is the TU acting under that its Professor and Head should discover such related information through the press?
    Contrary to the uninformed report in The Himalayan Times about the time and reason for my "resignation," I had actually protested in writing to the Vice-Chancellor of TU on Wednesday June 23, 2004 (Ashad 9, 2061) against the despicable conduct of the vice-president of the Free Students Union at Kirtipur. As I was working at my desk that day, he entered the office, abused me like a slave, and ordered me to enroll a student immediately. When I refused to do so, he threatened to thrash me up and to kill me. He threatened me that if I did not enroll the student "within five minutes," he would lock me up inside the office and burn me up. This is what I protested against. I still believe that no one should act on campus like this person did. The authorities should see to it that they do not.
    Before this incident, on January 1, 2004 (Poush 17, 2060) I had actually resigned from my job as a teacher at TU because of an even worse misconduct by the same person. As I was conducting the entrance exam, he openly abused me and other teachers of the department, forcibly took the exam copies from the room and later returned to the office to abuse us further. Our plea with the authorities to punish the culprit was unheard. I returned to the office only because the member-secretary of the central students union along with four or five other members came to my residence to apologize for the misconduct of this student leader. They promised me that this would not happen again.
    This time, on June 24, 2004 (Ashad 10, 2060), all the teachers of the department wrote a letter to the Vice-Chancellor of TU asking him to punish the culprit. They even refused to take classes. The Rector met these teachers in his office and told them that my "resignation" would never be approved and requested them to go and teach. He did not mention anything about taking action against the culprit. The Free Students Union, Kirtipur, published a statement to the effect that this conduct of their vice-president was a misdemeanour, and that such a thing would not happen again. Because of such assurances, I too returned to my duty as the Head of the Department.
    Now, I am actually on sick leave for a month starting July 26, 2004 (Shrawan 11, 2061). I had personally appointed Professor Chandra Prakash Sharma, with his consent, as Acting Head of the Central Department of English before going on a sick leave. I do not understand why the TU authorities such as the VC and the Rector are in such a hurry to replace me at a time when I am sick at home and to appoint a person who is already acting as head of the department. Could they not have waited until the day I returned to work? What norms of minimal courtesy and decent behaviour may we infer from this? 
    Finally, a word about the exams. When the Nepali daily Kantipur of Monday, August 2, 2004 reported that out of nearly 800 students only 28 of them had passed the exam, I rang up the Controller of Examinations to request him to officially refute this false statistics and to inform the public by publishing the correct one. He told me that he would include this request as an agenda of the board meeting that would be held in the afternoon that day. I did not understand why a meeting had to decide whether or not to flash the pass/fail percentage of an exam when the results were already out. On August 4, 2004, I called him up again to ask why nothing had been done. The meeting decided not to publish the statistics, he told me. Can any reasonable person explain to me why a board meeting of the Controller of Examinations should decide not to inform the public of the true statistics of an examination after the results are out?
The statistics that I have obtained from the Office of the Controller of Examinations shows that the pass percentage of English MA First Year was 10.47% in Vickram Sambat 2057; 17.87% in 2058; 26.41% in 2059; and 35.3% in 2060. Please confirm this with the Office of the Controller of Examinations, Balkhu, because I am not the authority behind this closed examination system.
    I feel that the authorities have used my protest as a carte blanche to victimize me. They have intentionally used it to their convenience by linking it up with the exam results. Otherwise, why did they wait for so long to decide? They will probably use my letter of resignation from the job itself, which I submitted much earlier, as a carte blanche whenever the opportunity presents itself. Do they have a right to do so? Is it not such people who should resign from their posts? And, was it really necessary for my friend Professor Chandra Prakash Sharma to accept this "new honour" without consulting me on this matter?


August 4, 2004