26 SOCIAL SCIENTIST MMP Singh : The 1987 demands—blocking of multiplicity of grades, continuation of merit promotion schemes, professors grade in colleges, implementation of the positive elements in the Mahrotra Report, simultaneous introduction of revised pay scales in all universities—are far from being fully realized even today. As yet, real implementation of revised scales remains very uneven in state universities. The resistance here is clearly connected with the Government desire to maintain or create divisions. The majority of private colleges have not got the new scales as yet. Efforts are being made by various Governments to link up implementation with retrogressive changes like increased work-load unfavourable shift in teacher-student ratios, etc. There have been several major regional movements in recent months. These include the long strike in Maharashtra, which obtained some economic relief but failed to end the major anomaly in that state concerning so-called junior teachers. In Bihar, a big two-month long strike was disrupted when the Patna University teachers concluded a separate agreement, demoralizing the movement. The Patna Teachers* Association had been captured by a BJP-Congress combine on a platform very critical of the AIFUCTO behaviour in September 1987, but now they have done something quite similar. Two strikes have taken place in Orissa, without achieving implementation of the new scales. So despite occasional regional militancy, the general picture remains one of weakness and fragmentation, in the face of the determined Government offensive of NEP. A confederation of the different teachers groups is clearly becoming necessary—a confederation, however, with a new kind of organization and style of functioning, otherwise nothing much will change. Question : Not, then, a simple return to the old AIFUCTO? MMP Singh: I do not think so.