It was quite a reversal of roles. The Governor of any state is generally looked upon as a rubber stamp and the university executive council as a gathering of learned men and women. In the end, it was Governor Mridula Sinha who came across as a leader with guts and gumption while the executive council morphed into a rubber stamp for the government, baring Peter Ronald de Souza who dared to call a spade, a spade.
The blow to the University did not come from the government. Governments always try to manipulate and control. It came from the executive council, which went beyond its brief and amended statutes of the Goa University Act to ensure that the present Vice-Chancellor Satish Shetye could continue in the saddle for another year. This task they accomplished without much trouble. The executive council crawled when it was told to bend and as a result the Goa University has lost some of its sheen. The entire executive council ought to be dissolved for not upholding provisions of the Act.
This is what happens when the executive council is packed with 'yes' men and women. This is what happens when the executive council is packed with people who owe their presence in the council to the government and not merit. This is what happens when you pack the executive council or any council with people who lack the courage to stand up for the truth or in this case the Goa University.
We are not saying that Shetye is a lesser man. On the contrary he is a scientist and academician of high repute. He was the director of the National Institute Oceanography and the University certainly gained by his presence at the top, until this retirement controversy broke out. But the crucial question here is, should the rules have been illegally altered to benefit one man? Wouldn't Shetye have emerged with his reputation intact if he had chosen to step down rather than allow the Goa University Act to be amended to give him one more year in service? And why stop at Shetye alone? Do it for everyone in the university and every principal in every college. Why have a retirement age of 62 for principals and a retirement age of 70 for vice-chancellors. Is there any data to prove that principals deteriorate faster than vice-chancellors?
The only person to emerge with her reputation and integrity intact is Governor Mridula Sinha. The political class has covered itself with shame. So determined was the government that it did not even bother to discuss the issue. The ordinance was passed by the Cabinet through circulation, which means the entire Cabinet did not even think the issue merited a debate.
And why was it absolutely necessary to extend the tenure of the vice-chancellor? Is Goa, which boasts of being a model state and having a very high literacy rate, short of intelligent men and women who can run a university? Because if that is the case, then it is a very strong comment on the calibre of leaders that this State is producing. A university should be a beacon of light to students. Instead, it has become a cesspool of politics and the message that has gone out loud and clear today is that the rule of law can be subverted and it will be subverted, if the situation so demands.
