A vice-chancellor being moved to tears while narrating the torment at the hands of student leaders is indicative of the “hooliganism” prevailing on campuses, said college and university teachers at a protest gathering at College Square on Friday.
The teachers said student leaders “found guilty” of committing atrocities on teachers have been nominated by the government to governing bodies of colleges and that only emboldened them.
The West Bengal College and University Teachers Association held the gathering a week after the VC of Aliah University, Mahammad Ali, was abused allegedly by a group led by Giyasuddin Mondal, a former president of the Aliah University unit of the Trinamul Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP).
“We all saw how the vice-chancellor of Aliah University broke down in front of the TV camera. What can be more shameful for a teacher? The incident at Aliah University has shaken us all. This indicates the kind of hooliganism that is prevailing on campuses,” said Prabodh Mishra, bursar at Kidderpore College.
While narrating the April 1 incident, Ali had told TV channel ABP Ananda on Monday: “They are our students? Can they behave like this? Can they tell a VC that ‘we will slap you’, ‘box your ears’. I could not take it any more.”
Partha Pratim Roy, a teacher at Jadavpur University’s chemistry department, where Ali teaches as well, said the incident at Aliah University was waiting to happen.
“A TMCP leader who had been found guilty of tormenting a professor at Rajabazar science college in 2019 was last month nominated to the governing body of a government-aided college. Such student leaders are being awarded and they are feeling emboldened,” said Roy.
The Telegraph reported on March 15 that the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education nominated around 80 TMCP leaders to the governing bodies of government-aided colleges.
The list included Gourab Dutta Mustafi, who had his name struck off the rolls in March 2018 and was barred from enrolling for any course till 2020 following reports that he had slapped a professor at Calcutta University.
He has been nominated to the governing body of Chittaranjan College in Calcutta.
Tanmay Acharya, who had been suspended from the post of general secretary of the Kalyani University unit of TMCP in July 2014 following cash-for-seats allegations at Nadia’s Bhaktabala BEd College, has been nominated to the governing body of Polba Mahavidyalaya in Hooghly.
“Gourab Mustafi had slapped Bhaskar Das, a professor of chemical engineering. Calcutta University suspended him for several years after an investigation. The government has nominated him to the governing body of a college. If this is the attitude (of the government), we will have instances like the one at Aliah University,” Sankhayan Chowdhury, a professor of computer science and engineering at CU, said at the protest meet.
Debjani Dey, a teacher at Bhangar Mahavidyalay who was allegedly heckled by Trinamul leader Arabul Islam in April 2012, said: “Attacks on teachers have been on the rise…. The only way to stop this is to keep protesting.”