To:

Mr Kapil Sibal

Chairman, IIT Council

Minister of Human Resource Development

Government of India

New Delhi

 

October 30, 2010

 

Dear Sir,

This is to register our sense of outrage and protest at the unjust and discriminatory dismissal of Dr Ashley Tellis by the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad.

On September 1, 2009, Dr Tellis joined IIT Hyderabad after a national-level interview with an expert panel. On April 30, 2010, Dr Tellis was informed that the IIT had terminated his services before the end of the second term. Dr. Tellis was not given any reason for the termination of his services. It is our conviction that the termination is neither just nor is it correct in procedure.

Dr Tellis documents a story of systemic harassment and lack of co-operation at IIT Hyderabad. He also narrates how attempts to streamline procedure, protocols and norms at the workplace initiated by him and his colleagues resulted in dismissive allegations by the Director, Prof. U.B. Desai, who singled Dr Tellis out for reprisal because he stood by the demands and principles.

We are given to understand from Dr Tellis that not only was he not given relief from workplace bullying and possible homophobic prejudice (if a newspaper report is to be believed, Times of India, Friday June 11, 2010), it is even more appalling that he was dismissed after two semesters without any reasons and without any opportunity to defend himself. Such an arbitrary act amounts to victimisation and clearly violates all constitutional norms of the principles of natural justice which an institution like an IIT is obliged to follow. 

It is clear such  termination of his services is fundamentally flawed since Dr. Tellis was never given an opportunity to rebut allegations against him. We are given to understand that RTI applications filed by him show the appallingly arbitrary procedures of evaluating teachers on probation prevailing at IIT Hyderabad:

1. The Institute claims that he was dismissed because of bad student evaluations but no such evaluations were ever shown to him as is normal procedure in any transparent system of teacher evaluations.

2. A “report of the Coordinator of Students” is cited as one of the reasons for his dismissal. The CoS is a non-instructional post and it is bewildering how such a report, clandestinely conducted, can be the basis for the evaluation of a research scholar and faculty member.

3. The Head of the Liberal Arts Department was not informed of the decision of the Director and the Board of Governors to dismiss Dr. Tellis nor was his opinion solicited to evaluate Dr Tellis’s performance.

4. The Institute paints him out to be uncooperative in the functioning of the Institute but only a few weeks before the termination of his service he was unanimously chosen by the Department of Liberal Arts to serve as its Associate Head.

We testify that Dr. Tellis is a talented and accomplished teacher and academic. He is intellectually challenging, academically demanding and committed to teaching. He has over seven years of teaching experience at Cambridge University, Bombay University, University of Delhi, Eastern Illinois University and the City University of New York. Several generations of students affirm his brilliance as a teacher.

We strongly condemn the colourful exercise of power and the patent prejudice manifested in the termination of Dr Tellis’s services at IIT Hyderabad. We are dismayed that the Indian Institute of Technology has not upheld academic standards and criteria of fair employment practice, but rather supports prejudice and abuse of institutional power. While workplace bullying has been formalised as a misdemeanour elsewhere in the world, especially in universities in the UK, in Indian academia what is a structural abuse of power is often reduced to prejudice or interpersonal politics.

Dr Tellis had appealed to the Board of Governors of IIT Hyderabad to review its decision in the light of such obvious prejudice and denial of justice. But his appeal was rejected.

We therefore demand an enquiry into the reasons behind Dr. Tellis’s dismissal and a review of the Board of Governor’s decision to terminate his service. We also demand an enquiry concerning the IIT Hyderabad Director’s arbitrary use of institutional power to harass teachers on probation.

Sincerely,