Protesters prevent guv from attending convocation at JU
KOLKATA: A protest by students on Tuesday forced West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to leave the Jadavpur University (JU) campus where he had gone to preside over the annual convocation. The governor is the chancellor of all state-run universities.
Students had declared days ago that they would not accept degrees from Dhankhar because he supported the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which seeks to fast-track the grant of Indian citizenship to members of religious minorities from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
On Tuesday, Dhankhar, who had waited in his car for 90 minutes before leaving, said, “This agitation is engineered. Please do not play with fire.”
The protest was staged by students belonging to Left and farleft unions and employees owing allegiance to the Trinamool Congress. Later, Dhankhar held a media briefing at Raj Bhawan where he said, “I am inviting the chief minister’s attention because to take on a path of confrontation with the chancellor…is not in the interest of the state. She should make it convenient to have a dialogue with me in the coming fortnight.”
He has also convened a meeting of the vice chancellors of all universities and top officials of the education department on January 13. Elsewhere, while addressing a rally against the
CAA, chief minister Mamata Banerjee alluded to Dhankhar and said, “There is a man here. Every day he is giving statements about law and order in the state. You should first go and see Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Bangalore and then talk of Bengal.”
Tuesday’s incident was preceded by a three-day tussle between JU and Dhankhar over holding the convocation. On Monday evening, JU authorities decided to go ahead with the ceremony while making it optional for the governor to attend. Earlier Monday, when Dhankhar had arrived for a meeting of the JU court, the institution’s highest decision-making body, students had shouted slogans against him, calling him an “agent of the BJP” [Bharatiya Janata Party] and questioning his neutrality.
JU vice chancellor Suranjan Das said, “The pro-vice chancellor and I requested the students to allow the governor to enter but they did not agree. Later, members of JU court decided to go ahead with the convocation.”
Meanwhile, over 50 postgraduate students from different departments did not take part in the convocation to express solidarity with students of Jamia Millia University (Jmu)and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) who have clashed with the police. “We will hold a day-long a protest outside the venue in solidarity with the anti-nrc, anti-caa, antinpr movement and the struggling students of JMU and AMU. This is a symbolic act of collective responsibility,” they said.