NOTES AND COMMUNICATION 69 draw into the authoritarian net the organisations of teachers and non-teaching employees as well. The "Teachers5 Association'5 will no longer be the master of its own Constitution. And there is to be a brand new 'non-Academic Staff Association55 to be created by Executive Council. This would surely be a unique example of an employer laying down the rules, powers and functions of the trade union of his employees—and ideal democratic5 right, indeen, for employers: The AMU Employees Union has already protested against this most undemocratic measure, and it can be taken for granted that the University employees are not going to surrender their hard-won trade union rights. The bill, as introduced in the Lok Sabha, also contained draconian provisions enabling the Executive Council to dismiss a teacher without due enquiry, or to dispense with the services of a probationer without cause at two months5 notice. The Minister was compelled to accept an amendment moved in the Lok Sabha byjagdish Bhattacharya, CPI (M) member of Parliament, providing for "due enquiry'5 before a teacher could be dismissed ; but the provision against the probationers has been retained. Thus though a partial retreat became advisable for the Government, its real intentions to undermine the rights of teachers stand fully revealed in the original text of the bill. The entire structure of University administration is so laid down by the new Statutes that the Vice-Chancellor, who is practically to be a direct nominee of the Government, is to have almost all powers, including the power to pack the Executive Council with his own proteges, by nominating them to various offices, so that the only body, which has superior powers, would also be under his control. An only crudely concealed machinery is thus provided for 'direct5 rule by the Ministry of Education through the Vice-chancellor. This would not only be a totally undemocratic set-up, but, by its very nature, breed such cliquism and factionalism as is likely to surpass anything seen uptill now. From what has been said above, it is obvious that the claims of the Minister of Education (hailed as a "true democrat55 by the Right CPI spokesman in the Rajya Sabha) that the bill is a progressive measure, are only so much eye-wash. The CPI (M) spokesmen in the Parliamentary debates, Jagdish Bhattacharya in the Lok Sabha and K Mathew Kurian in the Rajya Sabha, sharply criticised its many undemocratic features. It is definitely a retrogressive measure, compared to the Act of 1971 and the Statutes framed under it. It is, therefore, not possible for any one wishing to have a democratic set-up in the University to support the bill. Even the implicit suggestion that an authoritarian regime controlled by the Ministry of Education may keep the University administration in "secular55 or "liberal" hands has hardly any basis. From 1965 to 1972 the University has been governed under an Ordinance, which gave excessive power to the Executive Council consisting wholly of Government nominees. Yet the University administration has been dominated by the same clique as before. It has gone to the extent of allowing and even