In Visva-Bharati, a major political flip-flop

Its disappearance was as sudden as its look, leaving questions unanswered and the sector open for individuals to make guesses — and in addition, maybe, placing a query mark on the Bidyut Chakrabarty’s future because the Vice-Chancellor of the Santiniketan-based Visva-Bharati.

On Wednesday morning, a discover was uploaded on the college web site, inviting individuals to the following lecture in its lecture sequence, to be held just about on the night of May 18. The lecture was to be delivered by Professor Sanjay Kumar, Joint Advisor at Niti Aayog, and presided over by Professor Chakrabarty himself. The topic of the lecture: ‘Why BJP failed to win West Bengal Assembly Elections?’

Local information channels, which had gone silent on Santiniketan as a result of the college itself had fallen silent in the course of the current instances owing to the extended Assembly elections (and the outcomes) and the recent wave of COVID-19, included the information concerning the proposed lecture of their high tales.

Within a couple of hours, an announcement was inserted within the discover, that “Due to some unavoidable circumstances, this lecture is treated to be as cancelled for the time being.” Subsequently, the discover itself was taken down from the college web site.

“Things are opaque now in Visva-Bharati. In an institution founded by Rabindranath Tagore, who consciously stayed away from active politics, why was such a lecture proposed? If proposed, why was it withdrawn?” requested educationist Sudripta Tagore, a former pupil of the college and a descendant of the Tagore household.

‘Topic sounded totally out of place’

A senior academician, who was carefully related to Visva-Bharati for a few years and who didn’t want to be named, mentioned: “The topic sounded totally out of place in an academic institution, especially when there is no freedom of speech and any forum for open discussions, not to mention the terrible onslaught of COVID-19.”

A serving professor, who too didn’t want to be named, mentioned: “The fact that the lecture was to be delivered by a member of the government, one expected the blame for the BJP’s defeat to be passed on to other parties and political outfits. But once the news channels went to town with the news, the BJP brass must have taken note and realised how unwise it would be to analyse their own defeat in public.”

The VC, who took cost in November 2018, is thought to be a fan of right-wing ideologues whereas inviting audio system for the lecture sequence: previous audio system embrace Swapan Dasgupta and Tathagata Roy, each members of the BJP. But the subject of the now cancelled lecture may put him into bother: a social gathering delicate to criticism is unlikely to take kindly to somebody proposing to analyse its personal defeat in public, that too at a time when its authorities is already beneath hearth for its poor dealing with of the COVID-19 disaster.