How contract teachers put Chhattisgarh govt to the test

With the state due to go to the polls in less than a year, the ruling BJP government has agreed to consider the long-standing demands of teachers

When Raipur’s district collector Om Prakash Choudhary slunk into the Chhattisgarh capital’s central jail late in the evening on December 4, he was sceptical about the success of his mission. The Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer from the 2005 batch was on an assignment to end the indefinite strike of shiksha karmis (contractual teachers) in the interest of students as annual exams were nearing.
 
After nearly six hours of negotiations, when Choudhary walked out of the jail past midnight, there was a big smile on his face. He had successfully convinced the leaders of shiksha karmis, who were detained and locked up in the central jail, to withdraw the strike. The breakthrough came after many hiccups and failed attempts to end the stir in the state over the previous two weeks.
 
The academic activities in Chhattisgarh’s 54,000 government schools had been severely affected after 180,000 shiksha karmis went on an indefinite strike on November 21 to draw attention to their working conditions. In all, the teachers had nine demands. The prominent among them was their merger with regular government teachers of the state education department contrary to the provisions of the Chhattisgarh Panchayat Shiksha Karmi (Recruitment & Conditions of Services) Rules.
 
The shiksha karmis, who  come under the panchayat department, wanted their service to be merged into the education department. They advocated that the grant of a different pay scale, lower than that of government employees like assistant teachers, upper division teachers and lecturers, was in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India since they were discharging the same duties and functions as their permanent counterparts. They argued the differential pay was a breach of their right guaranteed under the  principle for equal pay for equal work.
 
The state government was, however, reluctant to meet this particular demand. “The merger (as regular teachers with education department) is unconstitutional as it is against the provisions of the Act,” said Chhattisgarh’s Panchayat Minister Ajay Chandrakar. The government was ready to discuss the other demands, but the shiksha karmis were adamant.
 
The state government pulled all the strings to end the strike but wasn’t successful. The administration in different places across the state imposed section 144 of the prohibitory act to avoid mobilisation of teachers. But the strategy did not work. The violation of order landed 20,000 shiksha karmis in jail. Three of the five leaders spearheading the movement were also put behind the bars.
 

Ajay Chandrakar, Panchayat Minister, Chhattisgarh

The police action propelled the shiksha karmis to intensify the agitation and it took a violent turn at some places. The state government issued an ultimatum and asked the teachers to resume work in three days or face termination of employment. The crackdown began as six agitators, including one of the leaders, Virendra Dubey, were terminated. A list of 150 more was prepared for termination.
 
As a temporary arrangement, all collectors and district chief executive officers in the state were instructed to devise alternative mechanisms to continue the academic activity and to ensure that the schools remained open. The agitators were, however, in no mood to give up.
 
A section in the government wanted harsh action against the teachers, but a few thought otherwise and wanted solution through dialogue. The person considered fit for this delicate job was Choudhary. With close monitoring from the chief minister’s secretariat, Choudhary held several rounds of discussions and convinced the agitating shiksha karmis to end their 15-day strike for the sake of students.
 
In the dead of the night at around 1 am on December 5, the shiksha karmi leaders declared that they were calling off the strike. “The decision has been taken in the interest of students,” Virendra Dubey and Sanjay Sharma, the shiksha karmi leaders, said. “The shiksha karmis have expressed their faith in chief minister (Raman Singh) and now it is up to the government to take positive step in the interest of teachers,” they exhorted.
 
The state government was prompt to welcome the move and announced to set up two committees to look into the teachers’ demands besides unconditional release of the detained agitators and reinstatement of the terminated teachers. The first committee would be headed by Chief Secretary Vivek Dhand, and it would explore the possibility of absorbing the service against posts lying vacant in the state education department.
 
The other committee that would include the top officials of the panchayat and finance departments would examine the other demands. The panels have been asked to submit their reports in the next three months. The state government spokesperson said that no demand had been agreed upon and the committee reports would pave the way for the solution after discussion with the leaders.
 

The demand of merger has been a difficult one for the government to entertain. For one, the regularisation of 180,000 shiksha karmis would mean an additional burden of Rs 12,000 crore on the state exchequer per annum. The shiksha karmis work under the panchayat and the state government gets a grant from the Centre towards their salary payments.
 
The Chhattisgarh government has been spending  Rs 5,200 crore annually to pay salary to the shiksha karmis. The Union government provides 65 per cent of this amount. Once the shiksha karmis are absorbed as state government employees, the grant will be stopped and the state will have to bear the financial burden alone.
 
The strike of the shiksha karmis had posed a major political challenge for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state. The timely action to end the standoff has come as a big respite to the government. This was the third time when shiksha karmis had resorted to agitation to put pressure on the government to fulfil their demands. And each time it has come closer to the Assembly elections.
 
Chhattisgarh will go to the polls in less than a year. The top leaders of the ruling party were in a fix with the expansion of the agitation as teaching community has a good hold in rural areas. Further, the opposition Congress was eyeing to reap the political mileage and had come out in support of the shiksha karmis.
 
The Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee had called for Chhattisgarh bandh on December 5 and had made all necessary preparations to make it a big success. Ironically, the strike was called off hours before the bandh was to kick off, spoiling the opposition party’s plan to grill the government on the issue.
 
The peaceful end to the strike also came at a time when Naxalites were planning to penetrate into the movement in an overt signal to garner support of the teaching class. The security agencies had recovered pamphlets pasted by the Left-wing extremists on Palnaar-Sameli road in restive Dantewada district vowing support to the demands raised by the shiksha karmis. For now, though, a solution has been found.