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| Sandeep Pandey with Shikha Pal |
Commenting on the unique protest undertaken by Shikha Pal atop an overhead water tank for nearly four months, the Socialist Party (India), in association with several civil rights group, Yuva Shakti Sangathan, Socialist Yuvjan Sabha and Rihai Manch, have wondered why has the Yogi Adityanath government is so “insensitive” towards her demands and is looking the “other way.”
In a joint statement, whose signatories include Magsaysay award winning scholar-activist Sandeep Pandey, they said, they are firmly with “aspirant teachers in their struggle”, warning the government that “if it will not listen to them then they may be forced to join their struggle directly.” Pal’s “struggle” is for filling up teachers’ posts in Uttar Pradesh.
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The Bhartiya Janata Party government likes to talk about the dignity of women and girls, they talk of a new India and the Yogi government claims to have provided jobs to 4.5 lakhs people of whom 1.5 lakhs are women. However, Shikha Pal, who is one among the 26,000 aspirants waiting to fill vacant teachers' positions in Uttar Pradesh government schools, is on a sit-in for the last about five months along with her colleagues and has perched herself atop an overhead water tank, 100 ft above the ground, in the campus of Education Directorate, Nishatganj, Lucknow, for the last nearly four months. Meanwhile, the Yogi government has chosen to ignore her. This proves the vacuous and sham claims of the UP government and exposes its insensitive character.It is beyond comprehension when there is dearth of teachers in government schools (except for near the city one will hardly find the full strength of five teachers in any primary school) and the situation of unemployment has exacerbated why is the government not taking the initiative to appoint the teachers who have qualified the required examination?
We don't have faith in this government. The farmers' movement has proved that BJP will act only when it faces the danger of losing an election. Until then it will continue to behave in an autocratic manner. The BJP governments are anti-people and maintain their stranglehold over power by terrorising the common people. The only way they know to deal with dissent is by trying to crush it. They don't believe in dialogue until they are forced to. Their nature is anti-democratic.
It is not just aspirant teachers. Anganwadi workers, Asha workers, Rozgar Sewaks, Sanitation workers with their service conditions, aspirants for police and other jobs or common citizens with price rise, everybody is unhappy with the present governments contrary to what the government sponsored advertisements and media would like one to believe. If the government will not listen to people then people will teach it an appropriate lesson in the upcoming elections.
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