SSA-RMSA Issue

Dr Asangba Tzudir

In contemporary times, the modern State brings a nexus between ‘sovereign power’ and the human life where the biological life is integrated into the politics of the ‘political’ wherein the body can either be transformed into a subject of the political or a condemned body of ‘bio-politics.’ Often, in the play of bio-politics, the sovereign determines a threshold beyond which life ceases to have any value or meaning and therefore a life denied reducing it to mere existence. In other words, ‘it’ seems to have established into a new juridical being within a new ‘juridico-political’ order, that decides what is ‘legal’ and what is ‘illegal’; who is worthy and who is worthless; who is allowed to live and enjoy certain rights, and whose rights are denied. 

It is within and against this grand life-denial bio-political narrative that the current agitation spearheaded by NSF and ENSF have cropped up on a more heightened tone demanding for mainstreaming of SSA-RMSA teachers into the state service from the Centrally Sponsored Scheme, a demand that has already been agreed in principle by the Government. 

There are certain roots associated with the current agitation. One pertinent root or call it a reference point dates back to the Advertisement No. ED/EXAM/2010-11 issued by the Directorate of School Education, Govt. of Nagaland Dt. 9th December 2011 inviting applications for filling up 2856 posts of teachers under the Directorate of School Education. The events unfolding created ripples and which has continued till date. The selected teachers were made to wait and it was only after their voices of disgruntlement reached the Capital streets that the appointment letters were given dated 16 March 2013. However, like the first batch of the SSA teachers recruited in 2010, their appointment letters clearly mentioned that they were appointed under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. The point of contention here is that the SSA Post creation Order NO.DSE/RS/2011 is dated 15th June 2011. This confirms that though the posts were advertised dated 9th December 2011 without mentioning SSA, the SSA posts had already been created. Therefore not mentioning SSA under CSS in the Advertisement is in itself a genuine case of not being ‘transparent’, and which the Government had also admitted, and which has surmounted to the current agitation.

Over the years various forms of discontentment have been raised, with the issue of non-payment of salary in time stretching over months capturing most of the headlines. However, one of the most insulting imagery engraved in their minds is that day in Kohima in 2016 when they had gathered to demand their salary. They were rather treated to cold baths through water cannons. It was a day the ‘noble’ teachers were animalized and shamed.

Besides salary issues, certain other privileges and rights were denied and for which they were made to claim their rights. They are not even in the purview of the rationalization process of up-gradation from PT to GT and PGT depending on their qualifications. This and many more denied rights and privileges beginning with ‘quietly’ appointing them under CSS to finally agreeing in principle to mainstream and now having lapsed the dateline have caused the latest agitation.

Now, given the current teachers statistics, it is already over employed considering the current students enrollment (1,69,548:19,625), and the mess of the school education department is such that it makes the process of mainstreaming challenging because of the State’s financial position. Considering the financial situation, it will in fact be a “golden handshake” for many in the group of more than two thousand teachers if the mainstreaming is done. However, the fact that the Government is yet to know the exact number of teachers under SSA-RMSA only attests to the fact that the principle agreement made earlier may continue to remain in paper. Having sensed the fault-line situation the NSF and ENSF have taken up the agitation.

There are certain alternatives though. One is to mainstream in a phase wise/subject wise manner and/or including them in the rationalization process of up-gradation under the State service. Subsequently, based on genuine vacancy, fresh appointments can be openly made under the newly SSA-RMSA merged Samaghra Shiksha Abhiyan though with clear status of their nature of appointment, rather than appointing under state service. 

Having crossed much beyond tolerable limits, human conscience seeks a moral order, rights and justice, which is seen through the current level of agitation. The Covid-19 pandemic is genuine, however, it should not be made an excuse to delay matters where life is at stake for many and needs to go beyond band-aid measures. As a footnote, as usual, the number of unpaid months is on the increase, an issue that has remained unresolved since the inception of SSA-RMSA in the state. 

(Dr. Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Comments can be emailed to asangtz@gmail.com)