Consequently, the committee's recommendations were drastically revised by the UGC. Since the Rastogi committee was set up by the UGC itself, the Government's acceptance of its proposals by bypassing the UGC, the statutory body empowered to make these recommendations, is arbitrary and unprecedented. Joshi has given no reason for rejecting the UGC proposals.

The Rastogi committee proposals for pay fixation had downgraded university teachers even below the level of the Group B Civil services. The government's decision downgrades them further. The UGC,following successive education and pay revision committees, had accepted the principle of parity with the IAS as essential to attract and retain talent in the universities. The UGC proposed higher pay scales, with a starting salary of Rs 10,000 for lecturers because (a) teachers lose several years before starting their career, (b) they have higher qualifications at the start of their careers and (c) teaching needs to attract the best talent for higher education.

In order to ensure upward mobility on par with the IAS, the UGC accepted ``the principle of at least three promotions in a life-time'' which was implemented under the 5th Pay Commission recommendations for all central government employees. Teachers would be eligible for promotion from lecturer to senior lecturer, from senior lecturer to reader/lecturer (selection grade), and from reader/lecturer (selection grade) to professor. The UGC proposed that the minimum qualifying service for promotion to professor ``will be after five years in therespective positions of readers/lecturers (selection grade)''. The government has rejected this principle, instead introducing a quota-based system of senior reader which would be open to only 20 percent of all readers with eligibility to be decided by the UGC. Only a few senior readers would be promoted to professor. Significantly, the post of senior reader with a scale only marginally higher than that of reader was not proposed by either the Rastogi committee or the UGC. Thus in sharp contrast to the UGC, which recommended that teachers should be eligible for promotion up to professor in the scale of Rs 18,400-24500, the government has condemned more than 80 percent of teachers to a ceiling of the reader/lecturer (selection grade ) of Rs 12,000-18,000, irrespective of their qualifications and merit.

The UGC proposed that ``each university should work out its own code of professional ethics and it should include all the groups in the university system, namely, teachers, group A administrative staff andvice-chancellor, and non-teaching staff''. The government instead has decided to set up yet another committee ``to look into matters relating to service conditions of teachers and help evolve a self-regulatory mechanism.'' So after more than two years of deliberation, teachers' service conditions will be examined by one more committee. And overriding statutory university autonomy, there will be a centralised decision on a code of ethics which will exclude principals and vice-chancellors.

Since the government's arbitrary decision so negatively changes the conditions and prospects of teachers, the potential damage to higher education is incalculable. It is indeed tragic that a government committed to increase funding in education to six percent of GDP and to swadeshi, represented by a professor, should so treat the custodians of higher education essential to any effort to ensure that globalisation will serve national interest. Is it surprising then that teachers feel so betrayed and humiliated?

Thewriter is an associate professor in the School of International Studies, JNU