Bengal students ‘distort’ Tagore song, V-C quits
Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) vicechancellor Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury on Friday quit his post, a day after a group of college students distorted a famous Bengali song of great poet Rabindra Nath Tagore by prefixing its line with vulgar words and flaunting them in Aabir (colourful powders) on their body parts during the Basanta Utsob (Holi) celebration on the RBU BT Road campus.
A controversy broke on Thursday evening when the images and a video of the students, displaying the obscene words distorting the line of Rabindrasangeet: Chand Uthechhilo Gogone (The Moon Rose in the Sky) at the event, went viral on the social media triggering a widespread criticism. The abusive words were written on the back of the female students and on the chest of the male students in the group.
Taking moral responsibility of the incident, Prof Basu Ray Chaudhury sent his resignation letter to West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, also the Chancellor, through state higher education department secretary in the evening. His move also came hours after an FIR lodged by the RBU authorities with the Sinthee police station against the group of six students, apparently from Serampore College in Hooghly.
Condemning the incident and calling it “unexpected” in the morning Prof Basu Ray Chaudhury had said, “We do not know of any such incident that happened in the history of RBU earlier. As we do not have the technology, it is also not clear to us how authentic the photos are. There was no lack of surveillance on the campus. While CCTVs were there, a huge police force, our security guards, volunteers and media were present.”
“It is a surprise that the incident did not come to anyone's notice. But it is also not unusual that someone may have an intention to tarnish the varsity's image,” he added.
Later, five out of six students rushed to the RBU campus to apologise. While one of them was a female, four others were male. They were seen sitting covering their faces in a room on the RBU campus.