How much callous and irresponsible educational authorities are towards fine arts and music in our State is borne out by the scurvy treatment meted out by the Government and the University of Jammu both to the Institute of Music and Fine Arts. It is the reverse of our boasts that India is the home to a great and ancient tradition of serving and promoting the faculty of arts and music to the extent that we worship Saraswati as the Goddess of Music. The way the institute has been handled by callous and irresponsible agencies is hardly commensurate with our traditions.
It appears that the University of Jammu has kept the UGC out of the loop when it agreed to bring the institute under its administrative purview. No University in the country is really autonomous in true sense of the word. A University’s autonomy is conditioned by funding and the UGC and the State Government both are the main sources of funding. Taking over the IMFA has had financial implications and the University of Jammu was bound by all norms to seek concurrence and roadmap of the UGC as well as the Finance Department. Not having done that seems to be the first flaw in taking over the institute. Secondly, the University has no authority to decide the nomenclature and status of the faculties of the IMFA. Only the UGC with concurrence of the State Government can do that. Maybe the University authorities have written to the UGC in this connection. If there has been any response from the UGC then the University must act accordingly instead of passing on the institution into limbo and uncertainty. From our point of view entire onus of making a mess of the affair comes to the doorsteps of the University of Jammu and it must account for the same. Why should the “Instructors”/faculty suffer as they are suffering now. The University should not think that Music and Fine Arts belong to second or third rung of disciplines in University curriculum. Both of these disciplines have actually divine sanctity in Indian civilization. Let us not be renegades to our civilizational wealth and tradition. Jammu city, as such, has to its credit historical and glorious tradition of service to the two aforementioned disciplines, and Jammu University is bound to uphold and promote our cultural traditions by moral laws.
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