Page 21 - Education World September 2021

“We earned the wrath of the VC Democratic Students’ Federation and the VC, he has been proactively try-
when we spoke against the suspen- the Presidency University Students’ ing to promote the saffron agenda...
sion of over ten professors on the Council also staged a protest rally on a calculated programme to ruin the
charge of airing individual opin- September 1. inclusive, secular, cosmopolitan,
ions over the state-of-affairs at the In support of their allegation that global culture of VBU, built painstak-
university under Chakrabarty’s Chakrabarty is hell-bent on “saf- ingly by Tagore,” says a senior varsity
leadership and organising a protest fronising” VBU, the students say that professor, speaking on condition of
when BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta was starting from 2019, several RSS/BJP anonymity.
invited to VBU campus in January ideologues have been invited to the As the impasse at the sylvan Cen-
2020 to speak in support of the anti- VBU campus to address students and tral university founded by Tagore a
minorities Citizenship Amendment faculty. On August 9, 2019, ABVP century ago, continues, more people,
Act, 2019,” says Somnath Sow, a national-secretary Sunil Ambekar including teachers, local traders,
suspended VBSU leader. was invited to the halakarshana long-time residents of Santiniketan
Since August 28, 40 Visva- (pastoral livelihood) ceremony have joined the students’ protest
Bharati students have gheraoed VC started by Tagore in 1929. Two against Prof. Chakrabarty. There’s
Bidyut Chakrabarty’s residence to months later on October 19, the VC a general consensus that he doesn’t
protest the rustication of the three permitted the Rashtriya Kala Manch, respect the culture and traditions
VBSU students. Supporting them, an RSS-backed outfit, to hold a of this 103-year-old university with
the Students Federation of India workshop in the varsity’s journal- glorious antecedents.
(SFI) — students’ wing of the CPM ism school. On January 14, 2020, Unfortunately, for 6,500 students
— called a two-day protest across Chakrabarty invited BJP ideologue of VBU, this impasse is likely to
the country from August 31, and Swapan Dasgupta to speak in sup- become integrated with the bitter en-
the Bengal chapter of the All India port of the Citizenship Amendment mity between the BJP government at
Students’ Association (AISA) staged Act which blatantly discriminates the Centre and the ruling Trinamool
statewide protests for two days against the country’s Muslim minor- Congress party in Kolkata.
from September 1. In Kolkata, the ity. “Since Chakrabarty came here as Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

SEPTEMBER 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 21