AMERICAN COLLEGE: OSTRICH LAND?

      

What frustrate everybody including Davamani, are the court cases that are pending against Davamani. Let us see first why Davamani is frustrated. As he believed and as every friend and foe of his believed, he could not exasperate and drive out of court, his adversary. First, it is his true and imagined money power – imagined by himself and aficionados- which he thought would drain every saving of his poor opponent making him leave the court in poverty. Not only has he been arraying in the High Court and Supreme Court country’s best paid lawyers but also using every fine nuance available in court conventions, to delay the cases so that the last copper coin falls out of the hole he punches in the opponent’s wallet. But this did not happen and would not happen.  I WILL NOT TELL YOU NOW, WHY AND HOW?

Next he thought, he can negotiate with the adversary. But poor “D” does not understand the grammar of negotiation. In any good negotiation, the negotiator ought to know what exactly the adversary wants to get out of the deal. But like a medieval bigot “D” wants to dictate what the adversary should want. It is a pity that the adversary wants “D” to squarely quit from the office of the Principal as he has committed fraud. It is non-negotiable for his adversary.

I, without fear or favour made public “D's” commission of fraud as early as September-October 2012 by calling for press meets and demanding CBCID enquiry into the affair. I wrote to the Governor of Tamilnadu too on 17 Oct0ber 2012.  But the wheels of justice are too rusty to move fast. But they seem to move now, grating and creaking.

Even notorious dictators, during the last days of their life become ostriches. Overcome by fear, they instinctively bury their heads under the sand.

Likewise instead of seeing the end nearing, “D” seems to brazenly say three things. “I have the right qualification; even if I go, I will see my adversary does not become the Principal but one who is of my choice; the Bishop will after all will listen to me!”

The ostrich first goes through a spell of denial, second suffers Lallu-Babri syndrome and third casts aspersions on the Bishop as if he is a chamcha. And then, it buries its head under the sand. What a fun!

But the cause of my sadness comes from my own friends and not foes. All those camp-following friends of mine, not simple camp followers - in fact wanted me to pack up and go as early as Nov.2010 as I retired and as they wanted to finish up with the burden of protest. In a way they were right as they became the primary stake holders in the college- and not retired people like me- certainly had every right to decide what they wanted to do with the struggle.

But in the spirit of an old veteran I kept telling my good friends that academic freedom and integrity are matters of constant struggle and no one should slip into any ‘comfort zone’. This evoked only hostility in them and smartly they started distancing from me. Some even became slanderous, others openly hostile and the remaining cold and indifferent. A very very close friend of mine even misheard “comfort zone” as “commode zone.” He then mercilessly judged me to be ‘rude’ and a ‘person without character’ and snapped his 29 year old friendship with me. Yet another friend cried foul, calling it a great ‘public humiliation’ of himself and his friends and henceforth will not stand my sight.

Leave my sob story and think of the present. There is a perfect silence about the commission of fraud by none other than the head of the institution – the institution about which we used to compulsively fuss over as “Enchanted Garden of Freedom,” “Temple of wisdom”  “House of Joy” and “Christian witness.” Once again at the risk of losing a few remaining friends and invoking hostility from many, I appeal to those who swear by American College and its tradition, not to be left in the “comfort zone” but raise their voice and refuse to accommodate a crime. Any failure in this regard, would amount to willfully destroying the integrity of the institution. An institution devoid of integrity, in no time will purge your integrity.

 You too therefore, for your own sake can’t bury your head under the sand, and wait for us to win the case in the High Court to remove “D” from office.

The Church and the Church-appointed Council which boast of having salvaged the college from the ‘heathen hands of Chinnaraj’ has after all has gifted it only to a fraudster. It is no easy irony that it has chosen such people to defend Christian Higher Education, worse, Christian commitment. I, along with a very courageous faculty member, as early as Oct.2012 sent a detailed petition to the Council about the alleged offence committed  by the Hon’ble Principal & Secretary. The Bishop of Madurai Ramnad Diocese as the President of the Council ought to have known this. The Council and the Bishop if they think they can also bury their heads under the sand, then they may have to wait for some more time to reckon with their liability in this matter.

I know many of you are eagerly but silently and anonymously waiting for the court verdict. But I want to remind you of one thing: there lie behind the prospective success of our two year long fight in the courts, the conviction, perseverance and tremendous financial sacrifices of only a handful of people whom for reasons best known to all, were discarded by the majority. 

I come to know that “D” is quite abusive of me for me 'being present in the courts'. See His Majesty’s anger! Who needs whose permission to go to a court in India? If needed, I can even take anyone to the court on legal grounds! Mr.Davamani, do you know yet another thing? Under the procedures laid by Indian Penal Law, anyone can set the criminal law in motion when he or she comes across a crime. Are you aware of your own vulnerability in this regard?

No one needs any more, bury his or her head under the sand. It will make American College an ‘ostrich land’, I mean a desert.