Dozens of posters were put up on the Visva-Bharati campus asking students and teachers to boycott Friday’s “political convocation”, accusing vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty of organising the event to fulfil his personal interests.
The hand-written posters, issued in the name of Visva-Bharati students, urged for boycotting the “political convocation” and demanded the removal of Chakrabarty.
The posters were put up on walls on the way to Amrakunja, where the convocation was held on Friday in the presence of defence minister Rajnath Singh. Junior education minister Subhas Sarkar was also present at the ceremony.
Although the posters were unnamed, all students’ unions and teachers’ bodies anonymously alleged that the ceremony was actually a political event to host the Delhi ministers.
“The convocation was announced on February 20 — four days prior to the event. The 2022 graduates were excluded from the ceremony in the last hours. No graduate was allowed to take their degrees from the dais as the VC and defence ministers conferred the degrees on the head of eight Bhavanas. There were merely 300 students allowed to enter the venue of the convocation. Those all prove that the convocation was not meant for students and to please the union ministers for the VC’s personal benefits,” said Minakshi Bhattacharya, who heads the TMCP unit at Visva-Bharati.
Several officials, who had once organised convocation, admitted that the date of the event was announced at least 15 days prior to the event as students, who are spread across the state, country and abroad, could attend the ceremony. “It is so pathetic that the varsity announced the convocation just four days ago,” an official said.
A varsity source said the date was announced once the nod from the defence minister came to the varsity.
“Was it mandatory to bring the defence minister to convocation? Is there any relation between the defence ministry and education? The VC could hand over the degrees alone. But he did not do so as he has to please his bosses in Delhi to get an extension here or to secure a lucrative post after his tenure would be over in November this year,” said SFI leader Somnath Sow.
The Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association (VBUFA) issued a press release after the ceremony claiming that Friday’s convocation was a complete disrespect for Visva-Bharati, which was founded by Rabindranath Tagore. They claimed that shameless effort by the VC to please the Union ministers made the century-old institution a subject of ridicule.
“It is a tradition that the students are conferred their degrees from the hand of their Chancellor or eminent educationists. In this case, the authorities excluded the 2022 graduates even after the official announcement...It was really a poor show,” the press release reads.