The protests by the students at NID Ahmedabad continued for the third consecutive days on Wednesday over the sudden reshuffle of departmental heads and removal of six women from their position by the newly appointed director, Ashok Mondal. Students and the faculty members are strongly opposing the sudden changes brought up and say they lack transparency and caused disruptions before the end of the current semester.
Two days after Mondal joined on Friday last, NID assigned new responsibilities for the departmental heads via email and on Monday students dressed in black started protesting outside Mondal’s office. Mondal had an interaction with two students and a faculty member where he was asked the reason behind removal of six women to which he replied women were “good at teaching but not in administrative roles.” The students protested and asked Mondal if he believed women incapable of multitasking. In response to such remarks, Mondal allegedly accused the students of trying to divert from the main topic. He also mentions that there was no gender bias in the reshuffle.
A student said the protest will go on as this sudden abrupt decision by Mondal is affecting students as they are a week away from the semester-end exams. Around 800 students are against him. The students of NID Ahmedabad planned to put posters on Wednesday where they will address the issue and how much problem they will be facing.This abrupt reshuffle disrupts their studies and their overall academic environment.
On Tuesday, Mondal wrote an email to the NID community where he explained that rotation of administrative roles are done periodically to balance the workload among faculty members, so that no one gets overburdened. He also said this rotation is necessary for younger faculty members to grow and contribute to the institution. These kinds of reshuffles usually happen during academic breaks but this time it was delayed because of interim arrangements during the transition period.
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