Every living creature, despite any stage or status in the hierarchy of creation, acts and reacts to ensure one’s individual or collective sustenance on the surface of the earth. For the maintenance of this status quo, organisms struggle consistently until some level of satisfaction is attained, and homo sapiens, being at the helm of creation, are more concerned about their inner and outer satisfaction. While human beings act and react, they expect a similar response and stimuli, as well as due appreciation from the other end. When we apply these dictums of action and reaction to their working environment, humans play various roles as employees and employers. In fact, whatever roles humans play, they are played and performed to make their living and working environment a place worth living.
However, the history of civilizations bears prime witness to the discriminations and non-appreciation of humans by their fellow beings in different aspects of socio-economic, political, academic, or philosophical well-being. We have seen hardworking farmers and small landholders bearing the brunt of exploitation and unappreciation, while the big landlords and middlemen get appreciation and admiration at the end of cultivating seasons. Likewise, our factories, industries, companies, and financial, and academic institutions bear witness to such ingratitude and unappreciation of their subordinate employees in multiple ways.
Being subordinate employees in the J&K College fraternity, we are the prime victims, like thousands of other highly qualified employees of the UT, of this depreciation at the hands of our employers. In our part of the world, as academic arrangement lecturers in institutions of higher learning, we are made to face the axe of discrimination as well as depreciation at every step in our academic journey. Despite being an integral part of this system, we are not allowed to even dream of any appreciation as if we are the children of any lesser god.
For our contractual fraternity, words like appreciation, admiration, respect, praise, adoration, esteem, reverence, and gratitude are alien. Despite being inalienable and inseparable constituents of our academic setup, we can only dream of appreciation but can’t taste that in a real sense ever. One wonders if we are not human beings or even the sons of this soil. Despite giving our youth as well as our energies and talents for shaping the future of children of our society, we are treated stepmotherly by our bosses. Our major crime is that we are highly qualified scholars of this land but contractual or ad hoc which makes us second-order citizens on every platform. We work at par with the other employees but are underpaid and unappreciated for our equal work.
This unappreciation and unequal treatment have made us vulnerable both physically and mentally. Every alternate day we think of taking drugs, attempting suicide and other untoward incidents wherein putting an end to our lives hits our mind first. On the verge of our overages, we are not in a position to feed our families or ensure their sustenance. The government of the day must come forward and change this regressive mental setup of employers in a progressive society like ours to save our highly qualified youth in the prevailing atmosphere of unappreciation and ingratitude in the department of higher education. The day is not far when the men at the helm of affairs would attempt to rectify the system but it will be too late. Happy Employee Appreciation Day, 2024 to one and all.
The write is a freelancer and can be reached at ra***********@***il.com
Employee Appreciation Day: Reflections on unappreciation in J&K college fraternity
