Tagore’s varsity has trampled Tagore’s ideals in punishing students for questioning authority, a demonstration asserted on Tuesday.
Three Visva-Bharati students, at the forefront of protests against the ‘whimsical’ actions of vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty and his alleged bid to saffronise the campus, have been rusticated. The axe has prompted spontaneous protests in Visva-Bharati by student groups.
The protests have also reached Kolkata.
“Rabindranath Tagore was critical of the top-down approach of the traditional education system. He championed the spirit of questioning. He always wanted young minds to ask questions and analyse. In expelling students for questioning the authorities, the vice-chancellor has set an unprecedented example of vindictiveness. He has also gone diametrically opposite Tagore’s ideals,” Satabdi Das, a teacher, told a Jadavpur audience on Tuesday evening.
She was one of the speakers at the protest meeting near 8B Bus Stand, organised by a forum called Bengal Against Fascist RSS-BJP. The forum had given birth to the No Vote To BJP campaign in the runup to the Bengal polls. The campaign had played a key role in mobilising opinion against the Rightwing juggernaut.
The demonstration lasted from 2pm to 7pm. The audience comprised around 100 people, the majority of them students. The demonstration saw musical performances in between the speeches, alongside a brief skit.
The speakers highlighted several actions of the vice-chancellor in the recent past — like sealing the office of a women’s socio-cultural organisation set up on the campus on Tagore’s instructions, the varsity hosting a lecture to support the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act of the Narendra Modi regime and erecting walls on the campus to “ward off outsiders”.
They interpreted the actions as part of a sinister ploy to crush dissent and saffronise the campus and curriculum — at play at JNU, Aligarh Muslim University and many other educational institutes in the country.
“It is ironic that all traits of fascism are rearing their ugly heads at the varsity of Tagore, who always stood up against fascism,” said Mrinmoy Sarkar, a student activist and another speaker.