JNUTA

Background of JNUTA formation           

The first association of Faculty and Staff was formed in the year 1971, and it was called "JNU Staff Association'. Subsequently, a meeting of JNU faculty took place on 2nd December, 1972 at 2.30 p.m. in Lecture Hall no. 1(Old Campus), which was attended by 65 teachers. This meeting discussed the need to form an associatioof faculty members, and passed the following resolution:

"This meeting of Jawaharlal Nehru University held on the 2nd December 1972, is of the opinion that there is a need for the foundation of a democratic association of teachers of this University. This association should open to all teachers of the University without any distinction or discrimination reflecting the organic structure of the University. The association should deal with all problems connected with the academic life of the University and those having a direct bearing on it with special reference to the conditions of service, rights and duties of the teaching community."

This meeting formed two committees to take this proposal forward.

1. Constitution Drafting Committee: this committee had 11 members: 1. Parimal Kumar Dass(SIS), 2. M.S.Agwani(SIS), 3. Krishna Bhardwaj(SSS), 4. C.P.Bhambri(SSS), 5. G.P.Deshpande(SIS), 6. M.P.Pandey(SFS), 7. Jawed Ashraf(SLS), 8. Bimal Prasad (Convener) (SIS), 9. Siwatosh Mookerjee(SLS), 10. Moonis Raza (Convener) (SSS), 11. Mrs. Ramalingaswami(SSS)

2. Ad-hoc Committee: this commitee had the following members: T.K.Ommen(SSS), M.L.Sondhi(SIS), Parimal K. Das(SIS),(Convener), G.S.Singhal(SLS), R.C.Sharma(SIS), Jawed Ashraf(Convener)(SLS), A.Bhatti(SFL), and Joginder Singh(SSS). Two Joint meeting of these committees took place on 24th February and 20th March 1973. A General Body Meeting to approve the constitution took place on 21st March and the constitution was adopted in that meeting. And the first ever election to JNUTA was held on 27th April 1973. Since then, the JNUTA has always played an active role in upholding and establishing the democratic norms in academics. During the emergency, two minutes silence was observed without specifying any reason, but whose underlined meaning was to 'mourn the death of democracy'.