In university founded on Tagore’s beliefs, now a clash of ideologies

Visva-Bharati, the Rabindranath Tagore-founded establishment celebrating its centenary, has come to symbolise primarily a clash between the right-wing and the left-wing in West Bengal, the place elections are due in April.

On Monday, practically 400 individuals marched to the central workplace of the university, demanding reversal of the suspension of Sudipta Bhattacharyya, a vocal critic of the Vice Chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty. Even although the march was held underneath the banner of Right to Education Forum, a giant quantity of individuals belonged to the Students’ Federation of India and to mainstream political events — the Left Front and the Congress — they usually have been open about it.

“The procession consisted of students, former students and teachers. I participated as an ex-student, but it remains a fact that I belong to the CPI(M). We marched to the central office and pasted a notice demanding immediate revoking of the suspension of Professor Bhattacharyya and 10 other teachers,” stated Goutam Ghosh, a member of the State Committee of the celebration.

“We also demanded withdrawal of show-cause notices served to as many as 84 employees. We want the functioning of the university to return to normal and to Tagore’s ideals. If that does not happen, we will suspend the Vice Chancellor,” Mr. Ghosh stated.

Felicitation of Amit Shah

Political battle traces started to be drawn on the campus not lengthy after the BJP got here to energy on the Centre. Visva-Bharati is a Central university — the one such university in West Bengal — and its Chancellor occurs to be the Prime Minister himself. In 2015, a group of lecturers fashioned the Visva-Bharati Shaikshik Sangh, a lecturers’ physique affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), and ever since Professor Chakrabarty took cost as VC in November 2018, right-wing ideologues started to be invited as audio system on the university. And final month, Home Minister Amit Shah — though the Home Minister has no statutory function within the establishment — was feted by the authorities.

Justifying this unprecedented felicitation of the Home Minister, who was accompanied by hardcore political employees and who mixed his Visva-Bharati go to with a political street present, a member of the RSS-affiliated lecturers’ physique had instructed this reporter on the time: “We are a Central university after all, and we also know that no matter who the Education Minister is, it is Amit Shah who calls the shots here.”

The battle now seems to have reached a flashpoint with the suspension on January 7 of Professor Bhattacharyya, who heads the Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association and who has been instrumental in highlighting the disciplinary motion taken towards a giant quantity of lecturers within the current months. On Sunday, 561 teachers primarily based internationally issued a joint assertion towards his suspension.

Though the Trinamool Congress, the celebration ruling West Bengal, didn’t take part in Monday’s march, its authorities just lately withdrew the two.9-km key street it had handed over the university a few years in the past. The transfer coincided with the allegation made by the university that the ancestral residence of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen — not an admirer of the Central authorities — stood on a plot of land that included unlawful acquisitions.