Payback time for NU - But who is listening?
Y Merina Chishi
Lumami | December 6
On April 1984, the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, during her visit to Nagaland proposed for setting up a referral hospital and a central university. The arrangement for setting up of the university was to be done through land donation. Information was sent out to all the seven districts if any individual or community could donate land for setting up a central university, but no one agreed to give land without monetary compensation. Then, during Dr. Hokishe Sema’s tenure as chief minister, land owners of Lumami agreed to donate land for setting up the university. I. Ihoshe Kinimi, Head GB of Lumami, alone donated 1,000 acres of land. A one Rupee coin was given to him as a token of exchange for the village’s generous donation. It was agreed during the time of transfer of land that, as compensation, 40 % of all Grade- III jobs and 50% of all Grade- IV jobs would be given to the land donors. A formal memorandum was submitted to the authorities on September 6, 1987 in this regard.
For all their generosity and a dream of ‘having a knowledge centre in their land,’ today the land donors are in total despair and agitated by the attitude of the university authority. The university has now laid down specific qualification and criteria for appointment to the Grade III and IV posts. One land donor says, “What does the gardener and sweeper need a class 8 certificate for? We are asking grade III and IV jobs, not for high and mighty posts. This compensation should not be denied and we demand a separate category for jobs.” Interestingly some appointed to these second- rate posts live as far as in Kohima and Mokokchung.
On June 2006, some ‘people’ reportedly offered land compensation to the land donors which was out rightly rejected by them. The land donors say that some people wanted to ‘buy’ them off and transfer the headquarters to Kohima. But the land donors say that Lumami is the university headquarters and it shall remain so.
The students at NU, Lumami are also of a unanimous decision that the university can progress only if the Vice- Chancellor shifts his base to the headquarters i.e. Lumami. Students say that a lot of promises has been made but nothing has been done. “The VC knows everything,” says one student. “Before we can even make known our grievances, he says that it has already been done. He should take us seriously.” The VC reportedly was supposed to have shifted to Lumami in the month of October and as students say, “taste what we are facing.”
It is worth mentioning that the previous VC was also a target of many controversies. Teachers and students of Nagaland University had demanded that the appointment of the previous VC, Professor G D Sharma be revoked alleging that he was inexperienced and corrupt as well. The teachers had also alleged misappropriation of funds against Sharma in Assam University where he was the head of the Department of Life Science at its Silchar campus.
Now with the Naga Mothers’ Association also showing grave concern on the way NU is functioning, it looks like Nagaland’s only university will have to revamp itself to accommodate the interests of all those who are associated with the university. It is time for NU to pay back on its promises—to the land donors, quality education for the Naga people and the noble aim with which it began. Is anybody listening?
