VANDALISM AT VISVA-BHARATI
Visva-Bharati, Bengal’s only central university of which the prime minister is the chancellor, is the latest hotspot in an ongoing, no holds barred tussle between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP, which is eyeing power in West Bengal. The university, set up in 1921 by poet, educationist and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, is an extension of his much-storied experiment in an open and inclusive way of life and learning, an experiment that began in 1901 when Tagore set up a school called Patha Bhavan with just five children.
For anyone who has known it for what it was in its glory days, that heritage is today endangered.
While political undercurrents have been palpable on the Visva-Bharati campus ever since the appointment of vice-chancellor (VC) Bidyut Chakrabarty in October 2018, matters hit a new low this August 15-17, when an administrative decision by the university sparked off mob violence, and pulled into the fray Bengal’s arch political rivals. On August 15, the Visva-Bharati administration began the construction of a boundary wall around a large open ground that has for years been the site of the ‘Poush Mela’, an iconic cultural fair held every December. The grounds are part of the university’s 20 acre campus and the festival was traditionally organised by the university administration. The fair is supposedly a four-day affair but usually carries on beyond the scheduled dates. It draws people from far and wide, even foreign tourists, and winds down slowly because the tourist traffic at the time makes it a happy and profitable occasion for local entrepreneurs, craftspeople and their patrons.
For this rather large community, the decision to wall off the grounds was like the proverbial last straw. In July, the university administration had already announced its decision to scrap the fair. Even that, university insiders and old-timers say, was not an isolated case of meddling with tradition. Under
the new VC, the university administration has apparently taken to fencing off areas on campus, ostensibly to prevent encroachment and land grab. But for people raised on a liberal diet of Tagore’s expansive vision of the world, his advocacy of a life lived in harmony with nature, these new fences and walls are anathema. As Sugata Hazra, director of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University and a Visva-Bharati alumnus, says: “When the very idea of inclusive learning is looked upon with suspicion, the walls grow higher. It leads to fragmentation of minds, and the very idea of VisvaBharati (literally: communion with the wide world) stands defeated.”
This was the set-up of the August 17 confrontation, when a 5,000-strong group of villagers and local traders, allegedly backed by TMC politicians, converged at the construction site to protest and pull down the wall.
Visva-Bharati had functioned without a permanent VC for close to three years. Chakrabarty, a former Delhi University (DU) professor of political science, was selected for the post by the Union HRD ministry from a shortlist of 14 eminent academicians. His appointment caused much consternation among Visva-Bharati staff and students, because Chakrabarty had been accused of sexual harassment in 2007, when he was director of Gandhi Bhawan in DU. In 2015, his candidature for the post of DU vice-chancellor invited protests from academics and activists.
As if to reconfirm their worst fears about him, Chakrabarty started taking unpopular decisions from the get-go. Then, this January, he put a media gag on teaching and non-teaching staff; suspended students and threw them out of their hostels for holding protests; dissolved student, teacher and employee unions; served showcause notices on 104 teachers and non-teaching staff— and suspended 12 of them—for alleged irregularities and mobbing the VC. Chakrabarty’s critics also allege that he wears his saffron leanings on his sleeve, and has made no bones about offering the university forum to people similarly aligned. Talks were organised on campus on the dubious benefits of demonetisation and on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) . In contrast, a talk scheduled in early March this year by leftist economist Prabhat Patnaik on the economic challenges facing the country was postponed indefinitely.
Tension mounted in July when Visva-Bharati announced its decision to cancel the Poush Mela, citing environmental pollution, overcrowding on campus and the university’s financial constraints. The National Green Tribunal’s order last October came in handy. The tribunal had instructed the university to take environment protection measures during the Poush Mela and set up a “dedicated solid waste management and sewage treatment plant”. It, however, made no mention of demarcating the fairground.
Discontent had been simmering among local traders ever since the announcement in July to cancel the fair. Sunil Singh, secretary of the Bolpur Byabsayee Samity, a local traders’ outfit, says the cancellation of the fair will cost traders “crores”. He also alleges that Rs 1 crore worth of security deposits, parked by traders with the university, for permission to set up stalls at the fair, is not being refunded. All hopes of a negotiated settlement went up in smoke with the move to wall off the fairground. While locals allege that BJP activists had been deployed by the university to guard the construction work, the university accuses TMC’s Dubrajpur MLA Naresh Bauri and Anubrata Mondal, a TMC strongman in Bolpur, of instigating the mob. Bauri has admitted to being at the protest site, albeit in the capacity of a Visva-Bharati alumnus and in support of the local people.
The August 17 violence is now a proper stand-off between the Mamata Banerjee government and the Centre, with the latter seeking reports from the district police, and the Enforcement Directorate launching a probe into the alleged funding of the mob vandalism. Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, too, took to Twitter to urge Mamata to “enforce accountability of those who engaged in desecration” on university premises.
With assembly election due next year, chances are this will fester awhile. Visva-Bharati has sought a CBI probe, and BJP leaders are organising candlelight marches at Jorasanko, Tagore’s birthplace in north Kolkata. They are trying to pitch the incident as a desecration of Santiniketan by the TMC while claiming to be a custodian of Bengali culture and ethos. Ironically, the BJP too found itself on the backfoot in May last year when a bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, another Bengali icon, was damaged during a Lok Sabha election rally in Kolkata.
At ground zero, though, the BJP seems to be keeping it quiet. “BJP leaders are not stirring out in Bolpur; if they do, they will lose whatever little support they have. People here are angry with the VC, for the way he is running the university,” said a resident on the Visva-Bharati campus.
The state government has reacted to Chakrabarty’s complaint of police inaction during the violence by withdrawing his security cover. The chief minister jumped in, declaring: “I do not want any construction there (Visva-Bharati) that will spoil nature’s beauty... nothing should be done that destroys the culture and heritage of Bengal.” Responding to her remark that “outsiders” (read: BJP goons) were present during the construction of the wall, Chakrabarty quipped: “Gurudev Tagore himself was an outsider [to Santiniketan].”
Whichever way this swings politically, it’s not likely that peace will return anytime soon to Tagore’s beloved Santiniketan. ■
The incident is now a proper stand-off between the Mamata government and the Centre, with the ED probing the alleged funding of the vandalism
Sometimes it is almost impossible to write a book review without commenting on the contribution of the author beyond the book. Especially when the author wears as many hats as Yogendra Yadav—that of a political scientist, psephologist, activist and politician. Making Sense of Indian Democracy presents the essence of Yadav’s lifetime pursuit wearing these hats in a concise, readable and relatable manner (full disclosure: I was trained under Yadav at Lokniti-CSDS).
This collection of essays written over three decades reflects not only the quest of an academic to understand how the practice of democracy interacts with Indian society but also that of an activist seeking to reform and transform the political arena. It has both, the elements of optimism over what democracy in India has achieved against all odds, and despair at its failures despite promising beginnings. These essays chronicle the democratic life of India’s ‘first republic’ and reflect with a deep sense of anguish on the idea of India under a ‘second republic’.
The book contains 15 essays and is divided into four parts. It begins with an historical overview of India’s creolised democracy and its party system of the first five decades. The second section places India’s record in a comparative perspective through a discussion on the uniqueness of the ‘state-nation’ model. Yadav’s engagement with election polling and forecasting, reflections on the ethnographic method and a critique of survey research are covered in the third part. The final segment deals with ‘reform’ and ‘action’ and clearly lays out what must be done to reclaim the soul of the Indian republic.
Those who know Yadav would confirm that the four concerns reflected in the many essays in this book—the Indian model, methodological pluralism, dialogue across the aisle, and avenues of reform—are not just academic advice, but also a part of his personality. The essays exhibit his deep desire that we should develop empirically grounded theories on India rather than relying on western models to explain our polity. The methods of inquiry should not become like a religion, where the ‘truth’ can be discovered only through one route. Similarly, the essays advocate dialogue across the aisle, both theoretically as well as methodologically, to develop a fuller understanding of politics. And finally, the interpretation of objective conditions must logically lead to the identification of areas that need reform and action.
As it happens, many of the problems that Yadav has been highlighting for decades have only worsened over time. For example, in 1991, Yadav wrote about psephology as a combination of at least three things: systematically conducted opinion polls; the business of predicting the outcome; and a highly statistical interpretation of election data leading to mid-level theorisation. In the essay, he defended all three aspects of this sub-discipline and advocated some sort of self-regulation among pollsters, openness to academic scrutiny of the polls, and the introduction of survey research in political science curriculums. However, none of this has happened in the past three decades. It is possible that readers may find some of Yadav’s essays too idealistic, but given that many of his warnings have come true, we ignore his sage advice at our own peril.
Of late, Yadav has been reflecting on what failed India’s first republic, and a stand-alone essay on this subject would have offered some much-needed perspective. This brings me to a major shortcoming in this collection. Yadav has written extensively on the aspect of social justice and given the importance of this theme in India’s ideologically polarised polity, the omission of some of his signature essays on social justice, affirmative action, democracy and poverty among others, makes this collection a bit incomplete.
Few public intellectuals in India understand the pulse of this continent-sized country like Yadav. This book will enrich the political sense of the general reader while journalists and academics will benefit from frameworks to analyse Indian politics and democracy. Activists will find here a readymade charter of demands and action. ■