Mamata Banerjee has sniffed an opportunity to do what a 32-year-old government has failed with a 192-year-old institution.

At The Telegraph-Calcutta Club National Debate on Saturday, the “chief minister-in-waiting” wondered why Presidency College had not been granted autonomy in all these years. Mamata’s comments have raised hopes among those batting for Presidency that if the winds of change blowing in Bengal propel her to Writers’ Buildings, she would unshackle the fallen-from-grace college from the clutches of state control.

“Think of Presidency College…. Thirty-two years have gone by, but why haven’t they been able to create the autonomous university,” said Mamata while railing against the motion of the debate — a resurgent Bengal is an impossible dream.

With the chant of change on her lips, can Mamata undo the damage done to Presidency by denying it absolute academic, administrative and financial autonomy?

Easier said than done, said a college alumnus who taught at his alma mater for three decades. Unless, Mamata manages to do with university unions what she has done with a section of writers and artistes. “The Alimuddin Street factor apart, she will have to face resistance from two other pressure groups,” said the Presidency veteran.

Resisting the move is a section of teachers and staff, recruited as government employees, determined to protect their vested interests while the CPM’s education czars at Alimuddin Street have always wanted to control the affairs at Presidency. Calcutta University’s power lobby has also been dead against giving up control over its most valuable affiliate.

The idea that Presidency College should be granted autonomy and be deemed a university first surfaced in the Presidency College magazine in 1972. Though the article — A Case for Creating an Institution Deemed to be a University at Presidency College, Calcutta — was not signed, it was common knowledge that Dipak Banerjee, an iconic professor of economics, had penned the piece.

The same proposal was tabled for successive state governments to act upon, but the college was kept under the aegis of the state higher education department and CU continued to call the shots.

“Three chief ministers, S.S. Ray, Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (see chart), failed to grant the status that Presidency deserved as a centre of excellence even way back in 1972,” said a college alumnus, now a member of the CU syndicate.

Sources in the education department said the method of granting autonomy was “simple”. The rulebook says the state education department has to get the proposal passed in the Assembly after the college proves that it is capable of sustaining the status and maintaining its track record of academic excellence.

“The government needs to take some administrative steps on privileges and benefits of teachers and staff, who were recruited as government employees, but none of the chief ministers wanted to take up the challenge. We will have to see if Mamata can change that,” said an alumnus.

The CPM has been steadily losing ground but it retains significant clout in the teaching and non-teaching communities. That is where Mamata’s powers of persuasion will come into play, said a member of a Trinamul-affiliated employees’ union in Presidency.

And with the Centre supporting decentralisation in education and freeing colleges from universities to promote research, Mamata can turn the autonomy dream into reality provided she manages to win the battle on home turf.

“This is going to be a win-win game for Mamata and she must give it a shot. If she fails, she can easily blame the Left for her failure,” said another college alumnus.

Though the governing body of the college, which has an overwhelming Left majority, reached a consensus on university status for Presidency recently, the supporters of autonomy are circumspect — on academic grounds.

“There is no point in granting an autonomous or university status in its existing form because some of the faculty members are not fit to teach in an institute like Presidency. If the college has to be freed from control, everything has to start from scratch,” said an alumnus and teacher. “Mamata is bound to face resistance if she wants to chart this new course for Presidency…. The question is, can she take the bull by the horns?”

Freeing its most prestigious academic institution from the clutches of government control will be a test for Mamata’s clarion call for change in Bengal.