Kolkata: Reading the riot act, the West Bengal government has said the students of Jadavpur University (JU) have to decide whether they want the institution to emerge as a “centre of excellence” or be known “as a centre of extremism”.
“The BJP government in Bengal in its first budget chose Jadavpur University as a centre of excellence, allocating Rs 1,000 crore for this. The 14,000 to 15,000 students of JU have to decide whether it will emerge as a centre of excellence or will be known as a centre of extremism,” Higher Education Minister Jagannath Chattopadhyay said on Wednesday.
The minister’s comment came days after Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari accused JU students of promoting anti-national activities on campus and threatened to “clear them out”.
Tabling the state budget on June 22, Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta had announced that JU would be developed as an institute of excellence, with a central government contribution of Rs 1,000 crore and a state share of Rs 250 crore over five years.
According to those on campus, this could enable the university to secure a status that had eluded it for the past eight years amid a tussle between the previous Trinamool Congress government and the Centre.
But the latest round of campus unrest, which began after ABVP activists allegedly vandalised JU on August 20 and a section of students and teachers stood up to the vandalism, has cast uncertainty over the prospect of JU securing the tag.
ABVP activists had reportedly stormed the campus to retaliate against the alleged assault on its unit president, Nikhil Das, by Left student supporters on the night of August 19.
A section of Left-leaning JU students said the minister’s remark was an attempt to “deflect attention” from the campus vandalism, The Telegraph reported.
“The minister is not saying anything about the vandalism by the ABVP. He is not condemning the extremist activities by the RSS’s student wing. Rather, he is leaving it to the students to decide whether they want JU to emerge as a centre of excellence or a centre of extremism,” a a fourth-year sociology student and member of the Democratic Youth-Students’ Association (DYSA) at JU, Anubhab Gupta, said.
On the contrary, president of the ABVP’s JU unit Nikhil Das defended the minister’s remark. “The Left and ultra-Left students write slogans like ‘Red Salute to Kishanji’ and ‘Kashmir Maange Azadi’ on the campus walls. These are signs of extremism. If this extremism is not uprooted from JU, Jadavpur can never become a centre of excellence,” he said.