A former police officer has now been asked to run a Bengal university.
Governor C.V. Ananda Bose has entrusted M. Wahab, a retired IPS officer of the Kerala cadre, with performing the duties of vice-chancellor of Aliah University.
This decision, too, was allegedly made without consulting the state government and has triggered protests from academics.
Some of them asked why the governor, who is ex-officio chancellor of Aliah and other state government-aided universities, is selecting non-academics to helm universities.
Academics of repute have traditionally been appointed as vice-chancellor.
On July 5, Bose had entrusted a former Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court, Subhro Kamal Mukherjee, with performing the duties of VC of Rabindra Bharati University (RBU).
The chancellor issued an order on Friday that said: “Upon the authority vested in the chancellor by the statute… M. Wahab, IPS (Retd) is authorised to exercise the power and perform the duties of the vice-chancellor for Aliah University… till further order.”
Aliah University registrar Syed Nurus Salam said Wahab is likely to take charge next week.
Calls and text messages from this newspaper to Wahab, who is associated with the Muslim Educational Society in Kerala, failed to elicit any response.
The Telegraph reported on July 5 that students of Aliah University had shut the main gate of the Park Circus campus to protest the lack of a vice-chancellor which, they alleged, had stalled academic activities.
None of the 31 state-aided universities in Bengal has a full-term VC now.
Some are being helmed by officiating VCs, but Aliah did not even have that since March.
Abu Taher Kamruddin, president of the West Bengal Board of Madrasah Education, had been appointed interim VC of Aliah in April 2022.
He had to quit after Calcutta High Court had on March 14 set aside the state education department’s decision to appoint interim VCs at 24 state-aided universities because the orders did not have the approval of then governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
But the choice of a retired IPS officer from Kerala to fill the void has triggered protests.
“Engaging persons from alien fields, who have no knowledge about the university system in Bengal, is just an attempt to destroy state-aided universities. They are out to destroy the educationsystem from the kindergarten level to the PhD. Can we expect a university professor to helm a police directorate? Is there any dearth of academics?” Anup Sinha, a former professor at IIM Calcutta, told The Telegraph.
Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP Jahwar Sircar told this newspaper in a text message on Friday: “Appointing non-academics as VC is not in consonance with the culture of Bengal.”
Calls and text messages from this newspaper to chancellor Bose and education minister Bratya Basu failed to elicit any response.
The chancellor’s decision to appoint Wahab as interim VC of Aliah University came three weeks after Calcutta High Court declined to stay a similar arrangement that the chancellor had introduced in 13 other state-aided universities.
“But the chancellor had in those 13 instances selected officiating VCs from among teachers of the respective universities. But in regard to RBU and Aliah, he appointed people who were not connected with the university system. We are not sure whether these persons could provide the leadership expected of a VC,” said an official in the state education department.
None of the 15 officiating VCs, the official said, was appointed in consultation with the government.
