A GREAT UNIVERSITY IN CHAOS

Bidyut Chakravarty's tenure as VC of VisvaBharati has been a tumultuous one, replete with protests, suspensions, rustications and court cases.

- Pritha Roy Choudhury

It began with a lecture series. In March 2019, about five months into his tenure as vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati, Bidyut Chakravarty introduced a lecture series and set up a committee to organise it. For its first meeting, he invited senior academics from within the institution's economics, physics, music and other departments but soon, both the committee and the nature of the series morphed.

The academics were allegedly replaced by ideologues of the Hindu right the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party. This alleged push for "saffronisation" in the months leading up to the 2019 general election was opposed by teachers and students and set off a conflict at the university that has lasted years. It has led to multiple court cases and seen teachers and students suspended for offences as minor as speaking to the press and rusticated or dismissed altogether for protesting.

In December 2022, Sudipta Bhattacharya, economics professor and president of Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association, was handed a "proposed termination" letter; earlier, he'd been suspended for 21 months, starting from January 2021. Protests against the suspension and termination. led to still more punitive action leading to outrage in academic communities even outside West Bengal. Plus, teachers complained of routine harassment on a variety of fronts, including the process for securing duty and station leave.

The new VC

Visva-Bharati was founded by Rabindranath Tagore in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, in 1921. It was turned into a central university and then, institute of national importance, during the tenure of Jawaharlal Nehru.