VC Election In Jaffna: An Open Season For Academic Suicide
By A group of concerned academics, Jaffna -
The health of an academic institution calls for norms and restraints
to be observed in social behavior, checks to be enforced and a readiness
to be accountable when well-founded complaints of impropriety are made.
In this spirit, when a Vice Chancellor is to be elected, the university
community has a right to know the strengths of the contestants and
expects the electors – the Council – to listen to them and to vote for
the most qualified candidate in the best interests of the University.
Sadly, what we saw in Jaffna University recently, was leading members
of the Council working through a government-aligned political party to
abuse the Vice-Chancellor’s office to coerce voters. One of the tactics
used was to put forward a mostly unknown dummy candidate who obtained
the second highest vote. The result speaks for itself. The level of
desperation to forestall any change in the university administration is a
pointer to a need for radical overhaul.
The Election
The contestants at the election were the incumbent Vice-Chancellor
Prof. Vasanthy Arasaratnam (VC), Prof. Vigneswaran and Dr. Alvapillai,
from the University; Dr. S. Gunapalan, Head of Management and Commerce
at South Eastern University and Dr. Ratnajeevan Hoole, Professor of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, who had
previously stood for election in 2010. Arasaratnam and Vigneswaran, as
candidates, were barred from voting as members of the University Council
of 27 persons, leaving 25 council members entitled to cast a vote each
for a maximum of three candidates of their choice. Names of the three
receiving the highest votes were to be sent to the President, who made
his choice from among the three.
Douglas and Rajapaksa
The Council had 14 external members who were appointed by the
President and 13 internal members, including the deans and senate
representatives – only 11 of the latter were entitled to vote after VC
Arasaratnam and Vigneswaran were recused. Since 2007, the appointment of
external members to the University Council of Jaffna University became a
matter of EPDP patronage. The EPDP is a northern regional party and
member of the current government. The EPDP has maintained a tight grip
on the external members, who before each monthly council session are
required to attend a pre-council meeting, chaired by the EPDP. At one or
more pre-council meetings before each election of a Vice-Chancellor,
the EPDP has made recommendations on how the external members, who
comprise the numerical majority of the Council, should vote. A
Vice-Chancellor is unlikely to have a second term if he or she loses
EPDP patronage. During the 2010 election the EPDP shifted its patronage
to Vasanthy Arasaratnam resulting in her predecessor losing office.
Following the Council meeting in February 2014, it was rumoured that
current VC, Vasanthy Arasaratnam had lost the patronage of the EPDP and
that she had subsequently made renewed pledges to the EPDP Leader,
Minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development,
Douglas Devananda. This was confirmed by the EPDP leader himself in
remarks made at the pre-council meeting, the day before the election was
held, on 7th March 2014.
The rapprochement between the VC and the EPDP leader reported above
had further ramifications for the politicization of the University.
Faculty were told by council members and senior academics that two
internal council members (and perhaps others) met Minister Devananda and
pleaded with him to support VC Arasaratnam.
Ratnajeevan Hoole appears to have been a threat to VC Arasaratnam. He
had contested in 2010 and as one of the top three vote-getters, had
been selected to be Vice-Chancellor by the President. Under the advice
of Minister Devananda, however, the President changed his mind and named
Vasanthy Arasaratnam Vice-Chancellor instead. According to council
members and senior academics, one of the deans was tasked by the VC to
find a dummy candidate, whose coming among the first three would not be a
threat to Arasaratnam but would exclude Hoole. This resulted in the
successful dummy candidacy of Dr. Gunapalan, who would indeed score the
second largest number of votes.
Friday 7th March 2014: The Pre-council meeting and after
In a pre-Council meeting on March 7th, Minister Devananda
addressed the 14 external members, and gave a history of how various
candidates had approached him. He said that VC Arasaratnam had met him
and emotionally appealed for his support, confirming earlier rumours of
his second thoughts about her. Hoole, he said, had written to him to put
behind their personal differences but had failed to publish an article
under his name declaring his support for Minister Devananda and the
Government. According to Minister Devananda, Vigneswaran had approached
him through an intermediary a week earlier, and he had said it was too
late to support him at the election, but on a subsequent contact,
Minister Devananda had promised to do something. This resulted in a
change of plan.
The Minister’s initial plan was reportedly to ask the 14 external
members to cast their three votes, one each to VC Arasaratnam, Gunapalan
and Alvapillai. In the changed plan VC Arasaratnam, the dummy candidate
and Vigneswaran were each to receive a vote from all the external
members. The Minister wished to exclude Hoole, but had evidently not
shown overt preference for VC Arasaratnam, who became alarmed by the
change of plan. Other sources contend that two council members, whose
names are known, had been tasked to give one vote each to VC Arasaratnam
and Alvapillai and withhold the third vote.
Having announced the new plan, Devananda addressed a question to the
two senior council members whom he suspected would act independently,
“So what do you think?” One of them answered, “Since you were the one
that appointed me to the Council, I have to do as you say. But I have
one reservation. I do not know this person Gunapalan at all. How can I
vote for him?” Devananda answered that he need not, and asked him to
give one vote each to VC Arasaratnam and Vigneswaran.
The other senior member whose obedience was in doubt had from time to
time, privately voiced strong criticism of irregularities on selection
boards and had kept off some of them, saying that he would, if he
participated, become party to cheating and corruption at the University.
To the Minister’s probing question, he said that he would vote only for
those who had been in Jaffna throughout.
One of the Deans in conversation with other faculty members, and not
knowing of Minister Devananda’s change of plan, referred to the initial
plan and said that Vigneswaran may not get any votes, and ‘if he gets
one, it would definitely be mine’.
Evidently, someone impressed upon Minister Devananda the need to call
up the internal members and instruct them on how to vote. VC
Arasaratnam had in fact called at Devananda’s office after the
pre-Council meeting and left at about 7.30 PM. Devananda’s calls to
internal members went on into Saturday morning, the day of the voting.
Some reported that these were courteous. Others got curt instructions
not to vote for Hoole.” But Devananda did not seem inclined to openly
exclude Vigneswaran.
Arasaratnam was confronted with a situation where the internal
preferences might enable Vigneswaran to poll more votes than her. She
resorted to calling some of the internal members at about 8.00 to 8.30
PM, shortly after leaving the EPDP office. Asking someone to vote for
her was perfectly legitimate, but as a candidate, she took the
questionable step of telling persons to vote against Vigneswaran on
personal grounds. She called one Dean and asked if he would vote for
Hoole. The Dean replied that he would give one vote to her and one to
Vigneswaran. Taken aback, she asked whether another prominent Dean had
not called him and told him about the latter plan to vote for her alone?
When the voting took place the next day, VC Arasaratnam obtained 24
votes. Only one among all the voters had not voted for her. Gunapalan
obtained 16. It is likely that he obtained 11 from the external members
and five from internal members. In the end the dummy candidate had
creditably done well enough to be appointed Vice-Chancellor. Vigneswaran
obtained 13 votes. The facts above suggest 12 from external members as
directed by Minister Devananda, and just one from an internal member.
Hoole and Alvapillai got two votes each.
Consequences of the Election
Sections of the university community have until now challenged the
Administration on corrupt practices in academic appointments. Among them
are the cases of Surenthini Sithamparanathan who was rejected for the
post of Probationary Lecturer in Sports Science, and Miss. Nilani
Kanesharatnam for Probationary Lecturer in Zoology. The Vice-Chancellor
cancelled the appointment of the candidate chosen for Sports Science
after Miss. Sithamparanathan pointed out irregularities that were
blatantly problematic in a letter to administration. The candidates were
re-interviewed at the end of the year. Both Miss. Sithamparanathan and
the previously selected candidate, together with the rest, were rejected
on the grounds that their subject knowledge was inadequate. How a
candidate previously selected as suitable for the job could a short time
later be found unsuitable by almost the same selection committee is a
mystery. The abuse involved in selection boards, sometimes having no
representatives with any subject knowledge, passing judgment on
well-qualified candidates as having poor subject knowledge has been
raised.
In place of Miss. Kanesharatnam who had a first class and a gold
medal from this university, a candidate far inferior was selected.
Letters of protest to the Council, from the candidate herself in
December 2013, and subsequently by the JUSTA have been ignored. Both the
Vice Chancellor and one of the Deans involved in vote-engineering have
been leading members of all selection committees above. This leads to a
grave question.
Integrity of Appointments and Elections
One sees practically no dissent in our selection committees. Take the
Vice Chancellor’s election, where the voting was fixed. Calls to
internal members by Minister Devananda, and the Vice Chancellor herself,
had a strong hint of unpleasant consequences. The fears of those they
called are very real. The voting was on single-sheet ballots where
electors selected up to three names. These ballots are held by an
administration whose top officials have regular commerce with the EPDP
office. The EPDP knows how the external members voted. The voting of at
least four commonly-known servile deans would also enable the EPDP to
make inferences about how the remaining half a dozen internal members
voted.
The matter has been especially troubling in recent years when the
Council and university selection committees approved political
appointees for the non-academic staff positions who fared miserably when
tested and interviewed by the University community. The level of
coercion in the system is most obvious among the non-academic staff.
There has been intimidation of members of the non-academic staff union
who protested against abuses in selections. Once the EPDP obtained a
virtual monopoly of staff appointments, new appointees who did not join
the new EPDP set-up union have been threatened with transfers to
Vavuniya or Killinochchi. These threats will eventually be enforced
through the Administration.
Most scandalous is the fact that forces that have no real interest in
our education, the future of the society, or the University, will even
more have a monopoly over the administration and appointments to the
University. This is all done cynically. Cynicism about the persons they
appoint to high office is readily seen from the manner of the
Vice-Chancellor’s election. Under the present dispensation, we could
expect the Council to blatantly ignore all protest against abuse. We
could expect a disastrous escalation of bad candidates smuggled into
academic positions with total impunity. The University’s future is
indeed bleak.
The role of the academic and non-academic staff who have been
smuggled in can be seen in their hostility to the unions, their
unquestioning advocacy of those in power, and their reliance on
political patronage for career advancement. Once we show the politicians
that we are corrupt, there is no reason why they should not take over
all appointments, as they have done for non-academic staff and the
running of the Council itself. After the recent election, we should have
no illusions. The public spends two lakhs of rupees on each student in a
year. Can our increasingly corrupt and politicized universities give
them their money’s worth? Or have we become frauds taking the public’s
money to spread corruption into the body politic while giving paper
degrees of little worth?
