Anuradha Lohia, Presidency University vice-chancellor, loves her students and is all for protests.

"I don't have a problem with protests. I love my students. I just wish they hadn't dirtied the walls of a vice-chancellor's chamber in the name of protest," she said in her address to students of La Martiniere for Girls on Tuesday.

"They came back and apologised later though," she said, referring to last year's (August 22) three-day campus unrest when the incident had occurred.

Lohia was the chief guest on the occasion of the 181st commemoration service of the school's founder, Major General Claude Martin.

She went on to say liberty was when one understood one's responsibilities. "Liberty is not about crossing the street when the traffic signal is on or dirtying the walls of a vice-chancellor's chamber in the name of protest."

Students at the school's Lawrence Hall listened to Lohia with rapt attention as she said one was supposed to become an adult at 18.

"But you don't become an adult at 18, you become one when you go to college and when you learn to differentiate between right and wrong," she said. "You learn what is right and wrong in school; but you get to experiment with it when you are in college. Then you take responsibility for what is right and wrong and use your judgement."

Many students said after the programme they understood what Lohia meant. "In school we lead a sheltered life. But when we go to college we have to use our discretion and judge situations and behave accordingly," Aditi Chowbey of Class XII said.

"What we learn in school is put to test when we are on our own. Vandalism cannot be a way of protest," she said.

Aratrika Brahmachari of Class XII said it was a good thing if protests were to bring about a positive change. "The problem is when it is a disruptive protest and used as a method of disruption. As students we have to use our discretion regarding what we are protesting or standing up for," she said.

Later in the day, vice-chancellor Lohia - a veteran of many campus protests in her Presidency stint (a little over two years) - said her statement shouldn't be read in isolation.

"I said that in the context of what the idea of liberty stands for. The reference to Presidency was just incidental," she said.

At La Martiniere, Lohia spoke in the presence of Damien Syed, the French consul-general in Calcutta.

"France was the first country to talk about liberty, equality and fraternity. In that context, people had protested against what was wrong," Lohia said.

In August last year students had held Lohia hostage, painted graffiti on the walls of her chamber and climbed on a table adjoining hers.

They were protesting an alleged police assault on students during chief minister Mamata Banerjee's visit to the university.

While inaugurating a seminar on "Democracy and Tolerance" on the campus in March last year, Lohia had said she was open to discussions with students as long as they didn't "dance on her table".

"Raise your voice in a manner that I have to take you seriously. Come and discuss attendance. I mean it. You just have to make sure that you are not going to shout me down," she had said.

Campus unrest has been a constant at Presidency. Early last month, students had held registrar Debojyoti Konar and other officials hostage for almost 23 hours, seeking automatic admission to postgraduate courses.