Ever since general election 2019 in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 18 of the 42 seats allotted to West Bengal (pop. 91 million) in the Lok Sabha, and the number of seats of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party dropped from 34 to 22, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been on the back foot. Although high rankings awarded to the state government-run Calcutta and Jadavpur universities by the London-based Quacquarelli Symonds’ (QS) World University Rankings (WUR) was a morale booster, statewide protests by teachers of West Bengal’s 92,000 government and government-aided schools in November have plunged Banerjee into another sea of troubles. On November 6, the state’s primary school teachers demanding a 72 percent pay increase choked south Kolkata for over six hours. Moreover, since November 11, more than a thousand para-teachers are demanding upward rationalisation of their pay scales. Primary school teachers want education minister Partha Chatterjee to fulfil his promise to increase their salaries and bring them on a par with their counterparts in other states. They claim that while government primary teachers’ pay scales in neighbouring states are in the Rs.9,300-34,800 per month range, in West Bengal the scale is Rs.5,400-25,200. In support of this parity demand, teachers had gone on an indefinite hunger strike on July 25 which lasted for 18 days. They temporarily withdrew the strike after the state government agreed to meet their demands with effect from August 1. Four months later with no progress in this matter, the disgruntled teachers have launched renewed protests. Simultaneously, thousands of para-teachers from Bengal’s government schools are protesting under the banner of Para Teachers’ Aikya Mancha in front of Bikash Bhavan, education minister Partha Chatterjee’s office, for over three weeks demanding the pay scale of assistant teachers. After the protest reached its sixth day on November 15 without any response from Chatterjee, 34 of the protesting teachers launched an indefinite hunger strike. Moreover in solidarity, 48,000 para-teachers across West Bengal have been boycotting classes since November 18. The para-teachers’ grievances are that they are assigned the duties of regular teachers and made to work long hours without the financial benefits accruing to regular teachers. On August 16, they began a hunger strike, but s.144 (IPC) was imposed in the area forcing them to take their agitation to Kalyani, 55 km from Kolkata, where the police brutally lathi charged them. According to service rules of the Pay Commission, state governments pay 40 percent of the salaries of para- teachers with the remaining 60 percent transferred to the state by the Central government. The protesting teachers allege that they only receive the state government’s 40 percent. The Centre’s allocation is received by the state government but diverted for expenses such as decorating government buildings and running various populist schemes. Para-teachers are non-permanent teachers of the West Bengal education ministry who were appointed between 2007-2009 by the CPM (Communist Party of Marxist)-led Left Front government to maintain a healthy teacher-pupil ratio. At that time, they started with a…
