The move­ment for jus­tice and fair play started by the Guru Harkr­is­han Pub­lic School Teach­ers re­ceived a shot in the arm to­day when a group of for­mer stu­dents -boys and girls reached Gur­d­wara Bangla Sahib and prayed for an early res­o­lu­tion of the Teach­ing as well as non-Teach­ing staff’s dis­putes with DS­GMC in the 14 schools man­aged by the pre­mier Delhi Sikh body, which is hang­ing fire for more than a decade.

SPORT­ING “SAVE GHPS -SAVE OUR PRIDE” T-SHIRTS, a group of for­mer stu­dents from var­i­ous Guru Harkr­is­han Pub­lic Schools in Delhi, de­spite be­ing re­strained by the Gur­d­wara Bangla Sahib at­ten­dants from per­form­ing Ar­das, stayed po­lite and per­formed Ar­das and sought the well-be­ing of hun­dreds of teach­ers and thou­sands of stu­dents, study­ing in the 14 Guru Harkr­is­han Pub­lic Schools, whose stud­ies have been ham­pered be­cause of the on­go­ing ag­i­ta­tion by the teach­ers and the un­re­lent­ing at­ti­tude of the DS­GMC.

The sta­tis­tics un­cov­ered by The World Sikh News are stag­ger­ing. As many as 888 Teach­ers and their fam­i­lies are suf­fer­ing due to the neg­li­gence of the DS­GMC. For many teach­ers, the 6th Pay Com­mis­sion dues pend­ing for 10 years.

Sim­i­lar is the case of 771 Non-Teach­ing staff in these schools, to whom jus­tice has not been meted out.

Scores of cases are pend­ing against the DS­GMC lodged by teach­ers and non-teach­ing staff in var­i­ous courts of Delhi.

The love for their Alma Mater was ooz­ing out of their dis­ci­pline and deco­rum that they main­tained while squat­ting for close to an hour at the his­toric Delhi Sikh shrine on a Sun­day morn­ing with a large San­gat look­ing in awe at them and a few at­tempt­ing to learn the rea­son for their com­ing to the Gur­d­wara Sahib.  It was ev­i­dent that the stu­dents were able to drive the point home about the tra­vails of their teach­ers be­fore the Sikh San­gat vis­it­ing the Gur­d­wara Sahib.

Speak­ing to WSN, a young par­tic­i­pant in this unique event said, ”I have no axe to grind. We are en­grossed in our stud­ies and ca­reer en­hance­ment. We have come here to ex­press our love for our schools and teach­ers in grat­i­tude. Our teach­ers have shaped our lives and we wish the same for all stu­dents. Nei­ther the teach­ers nor stu­dents should lose fo­cus.”

“I ap­peal to the San­gat to join hands with our teach­ers and help them get salaries and other dues in these dif­fi­cult times. They should not be wast­ing their time in ag­i­ta­tions but en­abling stu­dents in this dif­fi­cult lock­down pe­riod. In these dif­fi­cult times, they are be­ing forced to protest.  I do not un­der­stand why the au­thor­i­ties do not un­der­stand this sim­ple thing.” he added.

Speak­ing to WSN, Guru Harkr­is­han Pub­lic School Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Gen­eral Sec­re­tary Jaswant Kaur, who was re­cently sus­pended for her cam­paign to get salary and other dues said, “I ap­pre­ci­ate the grand ges­ture by stu­dents cut­ting across re­li­gious lines. Their sup­port will en­able us to con­tinue with our protests for jus­tice against the DS­GMC.”

It would have been a grand ges­ture by the DS­GMC man­age­ment if some­one from amongst the top lead­er­ship would have spo­ken to the silently protest­ing stu­dents and at­tempted to pacify them and al­lay their fears about the fu­ture of the Guru Harkr­is­han Pub­lic Schools.