Leadership bankruptcy at KU

The promising legacy of KU has continued to move on the course of erosion basically in terms of academic freedom and organisational rights in KU. Moreover, KU, under tutelage of Prof. Suresh Raj Sharma, has witnessed a spate of abuse, harassment and torturing of staffs, faculties, students and even a founder member. Except Prof. Suresh Raj Sharma and his goons, many are unhappy in KU and as a result efficiency and enthusiasm are at the lowest ebb. One major cause for the emergence of such pathetic situation is nothing other than the leadership bankruptcy at KU. The following arguments would substantiate our claim.

Never ever in the history of KU, leaving aside some exceptions, there staged such a high voltage drama for the reappointment of Prof. Suresh Raj Sharma. He first trumpeted his success with KU construction. When faculties and staffs substantiated that these constructions are breeding ground of his corruption, then he talked about the "participatory model" of education in KU. Faculties and staffs countered him by setting up KUPA and KUSA to prove that even in private sector, academic freedom is needed. When besieged by resurgent faculties and staffs, Suresh Raj ultimately did what no body has done before as VC. Suresh Raj invited corrupt brother Mr. Jalan Kumar to storm KU premise to attack a founding member as he considered the founding member as a potential challenger to his VCship. When faculties cried foul of blatant display of muscle power, he brought in more goons to KU premise and mercilessly attacked another administrative staff. Chairman of NUTA (Nepal University Teachers' Association) has openly blamed that Suresh Raj Sharma is presiding over with the help of muscle power. Besides, these physical attacks, he has employed more despicable tactics like mental torture, racial discrimination, caste harassment, whispering campaign, slandering and defaming of his critics who challenged him openly and in written form. The way Suresh Raj has unleashed physical and mental attack on faculties speaks of his vision which is drawn mainly for accelerating promotion of relatives, bootlickers and goons along with his own perpetuation.

Undoubtedly, this vision of Suresh Raj of remaining VC of KU till death with the help of terror, domination and subjugation has put a big question on competency, motivation and professional commitment of his leadership. His leadership cannot be considered as lacking dishonesty but what it lacks the most is morality mainly because in order to best serve his ego, pride and vanity, he is betraying inherent principles of academia. As a result, he is bound to act as Napolean pig of Geroge Orwell's "Animal Farm." So, to provide more than equal status to his relatives and bloody sons of Sitaram and Bhadrman, the leadership at KU has derailed institutional mission. In other words the leadership of Suresh Raj Sharma does not seem to be seriously concerned about the major purpose that KU needs to accomplish and the way to be followed to achieve the purpose.

On the other hand, with Suresh Raj at the helm of affairs in KU, we would rather see total elimination of academic values. Academia without values not only hampers the mission but can also impede institutional operation by bringing in turmoil and catastrophe. Moreover, absence of value guidance in the operational process can be considered synonymous with an unfettered wild elephant. The current day-to-day atmosphere at KU is a significant indicator to such harsh reality.

Apart from these deficiencies, the KU leadership does not seem to have followed, at least, some minimum standards of management function. As a result, despite KU’s novelty and goodwill, academic programs have been overshadowed by partisan bootlicking activities engaging the teachers more in giving support to Suresh Raj Sharma than teaching well. So, the much trumpeted issue in KU, quality in learning has miserably plummeted.

By his desire to stick to chair till death, the leadership of Suresh Raj Sharma also seems to have overlooked the moral challenges roused by global academic entities like AIU (Association of Indian Universities) . Simply by skipping annual meetings of AIU, Suresh Raj can not fool them. They all know that in no University, there exists a life-time VCship. There are many universities in India which have far more impeccable VCs and heads than Suresh Raj Sharma of KU. Under their stewardships, Indian Academia have grown by leaps and bound. And still, none of them tried to be VC till death by brandishing their managerial skills as Suresh Raj Sharma of KU is trying to do.

Because of moral, academic and administrative failures on the part of Suresh Raj Sharma, the academia in KU has lost its meaning. As a result, there is palpable frustration on the part of diligent workers, enthusiastic teachers and innovative researchers. In fact, not withstanding the defamatory accusations of Suresh Raj Sharma, the best brains of KU have either drained outside or moved abroad. With Suresh Raj as the leader, they have not only lacked opportunities to best harness their capacity in KU but also have to compromise their dignity by licking the boots of Suresh Raj. To the worst, the KU authority appoint heads of departments and deans as a reward for flexing muscles in his support. How can any person work in such a filthy environment where the serving heads, deans, registrar and controllers are all goons and abusers.

So, there is no doubt that, to perpetuate his terror reign, Suresh Raj Sharma has sidelined the professionals from university affairs with bootlicker. Had the KU motivated these professionals to promote the university’s functioning, Suresh Raj would never have seen such days. In want of righteous professionals, societal goodwill is going down at an alarming rate. So, common talk amongst Nepali intellectuals is how can one trust KU where there is no organisational right, adherence to non-discrimination policy, no definite anti-nepotism policy, no restraint towards using goons , and no guarantee of conviction of murderer who still uses 18th century tactics to harass dalit and Madheshi employees? The recent incident of harassment triggered death of Buddhi Bahadur is an example of how bloodthirsty is the management of KU.

Another interesting context at KU can be seen in distributing hard earned money to Mandales organization like Teachers' welfare council. To thwart initiative of KUPA, Suresh Raj Sharma has meticulously designed this organization. Like in TU, in KU also, there are funds available for Students welfare. But, we can see the flow of money earmarked for these organisations in KU is being conduited to conduct activities like mobilising goons, or launching propaganda campaign in newspapers. On the one hand, the KU is dependent on the government for its financial needs and on the other it is distributing the limited budget for anti-academic purposes to save Suresh Raj's chair.

How long can the Ministry of Finance and GON support Suresh Raj Sharma for such activities? There are no such headings in the budget that allow the institutional heads to give money to goons to protect his VCship. The surprising fact is that neither the internal audit system nor the external one has recommended actions against such illegal, immoral and anti-academic activities. Would not it be better to spend the money for library books rather than distributing them for mobilising goons and attacking KU employees?There are several such anomalies within KU, which can not be covered by this small article. The only thing the government should think of KU is to do away with an evil satan called Suresh Raj Sharma.