An Independent and Interactive Tamil Community Web Site

26-04-2006

What ails Jaffna University?

By K. Pandiyan

The Tamil community cherishes education (kalvi) and knowledge more than wealth (selvam) or valour (veeram). Education has been the bedrock of the Tamil society in Sri Lanka from time immemorial and the University of Jaffna is the highest seat of learning in the traditional habitat of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka, namely the North-East Province. However,the past two decades of internal strife has devalued education in the Tamil heartland dealt a severe blow to the core of the Tamil psyche.

Since the appointment of Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole as the new Vice Chancellor of the University of Jaffna effective from March 12, 2006 the University has been in turmoil. There have been agitations (sometimes violent) by a small group of students and non-academic staff against the appointment of Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole on the allegations that he is anti-Tamil national and traitor to the “cause”. Further, there have been anonymous phone calls to the new Vice Chancellor and his family members threatening them with death should they step into the campus. Moreover, five members of the University Council who are alleged to have voted for Prof. Hoole also have received death threats.

The tirade against the new Vice Chancellor also has an anti-Christian element to it. This is part of an overt and covert strategy of witch-hunts against religious minorities in the North-East in the past 16 years, beginning with ethnic cleansing of the Muslims from the North in 1990.

There are invisible hands behind these agitations. This is part of a much larger process of criminalisation of the Jaffna population in particular, and the Tamil community at large in the past four years of the peace drama staged by Norway, the LTTE, and the Government. The process of criminalisation of the Tamil community involves training and arming the civilian population and instigating them to involve in burglary and thuggery, and thereby subverting the rule of law, which would justify the need for a paramilitary and para-state in the region. The purpose of this short article is an attempt to identify these invisible hands, both on-campus and off-campus.

The selection process for Vice Chancellor-ship in Sri Lankan Universities is as follows. The University calling for applications from suitable candidates places advertisement in newspapers. The Council members of the University vote for the contestants in a secret ballot. The names of top three highest vote getters among the contestants are forwarded to the University Grants Commission (UGC) for recommendation to the President of the country.

Then the UGC recommends the most suitable candidate among the three short-listed (in its view) to the President. It is the prerogative of the President of the country to appoint the Vice Chancellor for Universities in Sri Lanka. In doing this s/he may accept the recommendation of the UGC or choose anyone from the short-listed candidates. In the recent case of Jaffna University we learn that the President chose to appoint Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole in difference to the candidate recommended by the UGC.

Soon after the signing of the MoU between the government and the LTTE in February 2002 the LTTE has been attempting to take control of the affairs of the University of Jaffna (among other institutions) through on-campus and off-campus proxies. An academic staff who fled Jaffna in 1995 and sought sanctuary in the Wanni returned to Jaffna University in late-2002. While he was in self-imposed exile in the Wanni jungles for over 7 years, and working for the LTTE, the UGC has been paying his salary.

Soon after he returned to the University he became the Dean of his faculty by ousting the incumbent. This was the beginning of infiltration of the University by the LTTE through proxies.

Similarly, another academic who fled Jaffna and the country in the mid-1990s returned to the country and Jaffna University in early-2003. He quickly became a Professor and the Head of his department by ousting the incumbent. This person was a member of the team that prepared the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) proposal for the LTTE in 2003.

Moreover, he was the unofficial candidate of the LTTE at the recently held election for the Vice Chancellorship of the Jaffna University. Needless to say he lost the election, and therefore not one of those who were short-listed by the University Council for Vice Chancellorship.

The latter is the on-campus invisible hand behind the current agitations against the appointment of Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole as the new Vice Chancellor. There is also an off-campus invisible hand behind the current agitations who was an alumni of the University and presently a young Member of Parliament (MP) from Jaffna district.

It is widely believed in Jaffna that this MP entered University through unfair practice, viz. impersonation at the G.C.E. A/L examinations. Later he was a drop out from the University because of his preoccupation with pro-LTTE militant activities in the campus and in the peninsula at large.

The on-campus invisible hand in the current agitations of the University had a love hate relationship with the LTTE in the past. When one of his children joined the LTTE (either voluntarily or involuntarily) in the mid-1990s he desperately pleaded with the LTTE to release him. Because of the recruitment of his child by the LTTE he was an ardent critic of the LTTE at that time, which led to his self-imposed exile abroad along with his family for over 7 years.

He was a lecturer at a University in the country of refuge. During this time he educated his children in the country of refuge and they are happily settled there. Because of lack of teaching and research competence this on-campus invisible hand would have never become a Senior Lecturer, Reader or Professor at the University abroad. Therefore, he plotted to return to Jaffna University since the signing of the MoU between the GoSL and the LTTE in February 2002 so that he could become a Professor. Hence he started courting the LTTE and became one of its lackeys.

As a shrewd manipulator he began signing the praise of the LTTE and its leader (covertly of course) both of whom are from the same hometown, i.e. Valvettithurai. This academic’s brother who was living in Europe also returned to Sri Lanka and joined the Jaffna University as a teaching staff in early-2000s on contractual basis. He also attempted to become a permanent teaching staff by inciting the students and some peers.

He became so unpopular among the students and teachers alike, and consequently the University refused to extend his job contract. However, he sought legal redress and succeeded in extending his job contract. It is now learnt that with the setting up of a new Faculty at the Eastern University he has moved there with a tenured position and Dean of his faculty.

The foregoing incidences reveal that the pro-LTTE elements within the academic staff of the Jaffna University are not genuinely committed to the cause of the LTTE or to Tamil nationalism in general. They become lackey of the LTTE to fulfill their personal greed for power in their respective departments/institutions. There is another type of lackeys of LTTE in the University who are simply criminals. In order to hide their crimes they sing the song of the LTTE so that they would have political protection for their nefarious activities within and outside the University.

Among the pro-LTTE academics in the Jaffna University there are quite a few sexual perverts, against whom several allegations of sexual abuses of students and others have been levelled against. The police arrested one such academic last year because he was using his housemaid, who was a child, as a sexual slave. He was a vociferous supporter of the LTTE not because of his commitment to the cause, but to hide his crimes inside and outside the campus. There are many more of such perverts within the University.

The off-campus invisible hand stirring up trouble in the Jaffna University is directly involved in violent activities including murder in Jaffna in the past five years. Many people in Jaffna believe he is the ‘real’ Administrator of the Jaffna University

He directly interferes with the administration and new staff appointments in the University. Recently, he has forced the University administration to appoint his brother as a lecturer. It is doubtful whether this MP’s brother has the necessary qualifications to be appointed as a University teacher. The UGC should inquire into this irregular appointment.

In sum, criminalisation of the Jaffna society begins at the Jaffna University through a small number of on-campus and off-campus proxies of the LTTE by engaging in and instigating illegal, immoral, and unethical practices and activities. They are not Tamil nationalists in a real sense, just hypocrites and self-seeking parasites that are cancerous to the Tamil society in North-East Sri Lanka

Source-Daily Mirror