In Santiniketan, the general mood matched the gloomy skies on Wednesday morning as ashramites — elderly residents who have had a long association with Visva-Bharati — staged a peaceful protest against the university’s sudden move to fortify its properties by constructing high walls.
The elderly residents, who live around the campus and who now find themselves cut off from their alma mater by brick walls that have come up at several locations, sang Tagore songs and held placards opposing the new constructions. They said vice chancellors come and go, and that no vice chancellor should consider himself that powerful as to change the ecosystem of the campus.
‘Unusual protest’
“It is very unusual for ashramites to come out in the open to protest. Them protesting only shows the amount of anger the present university administration has managed to generate,” a teacher told The Hindu.
Walls are being built around the university property for a few months now — considered by old-timers not only as an eyesore but also against the ideals of founder Rabindranath Tagore — and work came to an abrupt halt on Monday when the construction of a wall began around the famous Bhuban Danga ground. Locals, infuriated that the university was going to make the ground — which hosts fairs and exhibitions — inaccessible to them, went on a rampage.
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Following the violence, Visva-Bharati was shut down indefinitely. While condemning the violence, the Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association (VBUFA), a prominent teachers’ body, said “the incident could have been avoided through prior discussion with all the stakeholders [including the local people].”
“For the last two years teaching, research and other academic issues and developments have been completely neglected while non-academic issues dominated the agenda of the administration, which the respected Vice-Chancellor himself has admitted in his first missive [the VC has been writing a string of missives since June this year],” the VBUFA said in a statement.
Call to VC
It also asked the VC to respond positively to the gesture of the West Bengal government of calling for a meeting — on Wednesday — of all stakeholders to amicably resolve that issue that led to the rampage. The university, however, decided to boycott the meeting and announced that the VC would instead lead a 12-hour fast on Wednesday.
The proposed hunger strike, however, was called off on Wednesday morning when the authorities sensed that the attendance was going to be poor. It is, however, still not clear whether the university was still firm on boycotting the State government-proposed meeting — to be chaired by the district magistrate of Birbhum — or would end up sending a representative.
When asked if Visva-Bharati would participate in the meeting, university PRO Anirban Sircar told The Hindu: “I have no information on this matter.”
