ONE OF THE FIRST THREE modern universities established in India to commemorate the takeover of the administration of India by imperial Great Britain from the East India Company, right until the mid-1960s, Bombay University (estb.1857) enjoyed a good reputation for scholarship and research. But since then, it has experienced a steady decline, particularly after the parochial Shiv Sena and a host of small-town/rural politicians of the Congress, Nationalist Congress, rose to positions of power in Maharashtra and began to appoint kith and kin to top level positions in the university.
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Since the turn of the century, the renamed Mumbai University (MU) has experienced the misfortune of being governed by a series of vice chancellors and pro vice chancellors selected on considerations other than merit. A case in point is Dr. Rajan Welukar whose appointment as vice chancellor of the university has been shrouded in controversy ab initio. An obscure Nagpur-based statistician with a Masters degree and Ph D in statistics from Nagpur University who never attained the rank of professor or college principal — prerequisites of a vice chancellor under the Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994 — Welukar was appointed vice chancellor of MU in 2010 despite not being shortlisted by a government-constituted search committee, chaired by well-known Delhi-based sociologist Andre Beteille.
In January 2010, when the search committee shortlisted five eminent academicians, Welukar’s name was not in the list. January 20 and 21 were fixed as dates for the final interview by then governor of Maharashtra and ex officio chancellor of MU, S.C. Jamir.
But on January 16, Jamir was replaced as governor by the Congress-led UPA II government in Delhi. His successor to the governor’s post K. Sankaranarayanan appointed a new committee, chaired by Dr. A. Kolaskar (a former associate of Welukar), which duly recommended him for the post, and Welukar was officially appointed VC of Mumbai University on July 6, 2010.
Welukar’s politically manipulated appointment as VC of this vintage university aroused anger and indignation within the MU faculty. In the months following his appointment, faculty members jointly and severally addressed protest petitions to governor K.
Sankaranarayanan as well as chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to initiate an official enquiry into the VC’s academic credentials.
Moreover in September 2010, former MU pro vice chancellor Dr. A.D. Sawant filed a writ petition in the Bombay high court challenging Welukar’s appointment. On August 10, 2011, a two-judge bench of the high court delivered a split verdict following which the case was referred to a new bench.
On December 11, seven months before Welukar’s undistinguished term as vice chancellor is scheduled to end on July 30, 2015, a new two-judge bench of Justices P.V. Hardas and Anjana Prabhudesai slammed the three-member committee constituted by former Maharashtra governor Sankaranarayan for shortlisting Welukar for the vice chancellor’s office on the basis of research publications presented by the latter as proof of his qualification for the job. Referring the matter back to the three-member committee, the court directed it to “apply its mind” to the publications and also decide whether Welukar should retain the VC’s office until the end of his term. The three-member governor-appointed committee comprises J.S. Saharia, now election commissioner of Maharashtra; Dr A.S. Kolaskar, then vice chancellor of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneshwar, and Prof P. Balaram, until recently director of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
Quite clearly with the political protection provided by the erstwhile Congress-NCP government, which took corruption to new heights in Maharashtra (pop.112 million) during its ten-year misrule, having ended following the defeat of the coalition in the state legislative elections of last October, the writing is on the wall for Welukar.
But with his term almost over, the most he is likely to lose is his pension and term benefits in the event of his appointment being declared null and void. The big losers as usual will be MU’s 650,000 students in 667 affiliated colleges and postgrad students on the varsity’s campus in Kalina, who have to cope with the substandard faculty appointed in the past five years. And of course the reputation of the university itself whose certification is being devalued every year.
Indrajit Dutta (Mumbai)