Aishe Ghosh, SFI leads stir at Visva Bharati against expulsion of students

Kolkata: Aishe Ghosh, the student union president at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and other leaders of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the students’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday started an agitation at Visva Bharati University in West Bengal in protest against the expulsion of three students on disciplinary ground.

The students, who were suspended in January last year, took part in agitations against several actions by vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty and visits by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders such as Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta in 2020 and Union home minister Amit Shah before the March-April assembly polls.

Demanding Chakrabarty’s removal, Ghosh said, “He is acting on behalf of the Rashtriya Shayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that wants to establish control over several universities. They tried the same in JNU.”

Students of Kolkata’s Jadavpur University also took part in the protest.

Also Read: Visva-Bharati ‘temporarily suspended’ admission process, publication of results

Visva Bharati students had been agitating outside the V-C’s on-campus residence since August 28 when the university’s executive council passed the expulsion order. The three students were earlier asked to submit their petition in regard to the decision on expulsion. On August 28, the executive council of Visva Bharati held on to its decision to expel the students, a member of the faculty association, who is aware of the development, said on condition of anonymity.

“Several teachers are also under suspension. They have challenged the order,” the faculty association member said.

Located at Bolpur in Birbhum district, Visva Bharati is Bengal’s only central university, of which the Prime Minister is the chancellor. Rabindranath Tagore founded Visva Bharati in 1921 and it was declared a central university in 1951.

The V-C and the university did not make any statements till late Tuesday evening. The authorities have sent an e-mail to the local police, seeking security for the V-C’s quarters.

In August last year, the V-C’s decision to cordon the campus led to a stir. A crowd comprising local residents and shopkeepers demolished two gates and damaged construction material kept for building a wall around the ground where an annual fair is held in December.

The fair, popularly known as Poush Mela, draws thousands of people and even foreign tourists. For traders, the fair is a major source of income.

While the V-C sought deployment of central paramilitary forces on campus following the vandalism, chief minister Mamata Banerjee disapproved of the wall.

“When Tagore built Visva Bharati, he wanted students to be in the heart of nature and study in the open. He did not want wood and cement structures,” she said in August last year.

In January last year also, there was student unrest when Swapan Dasgupta was invited by the authorities to speak on the Citizenship Amendment Act at a seminar.

The following month, Chakrabarty triggered a controversy when he said those who gather at Delhi’s Rajghat donning white caps on Gandhi Jayanti are “the country’s biggest thieves.”