All’s not well at Rabindranath tagore’s dream university

When Rabindranath Tagore established his paean to peace in 1921, he chose its name from an ancient Sanskrit verse, yatra visvam bhavati eka nidam: where the whole world meets in a single nest.

The world may have met at the Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan, but one thing’s sure: this reputed institute set up to see education in a different way is in the news for all the wrong reasons. The death of Mrinmoy Mukherjee, a post-graduate student of history in Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan in January end this year due to alleged medical negligence is only the latest signpost on a downhill road.

Mukherjee was admitted to the university’s Pearson Memorial Hospital where he was treated for 13 days. When the doctors failed to diagnose him, he was shifted to two other hospitals before he ultimately died, of jaundice.

The doctors told his ‘‘relatives that he was brought almost half dead.’’ Enraged students attacked the Pearson hospital and ransacked the hospital’s X-Ray, pathology and other departments.

But violence is just one of the problems at Santiniketan. Academics are huddled in cliques, student bodies are militant and the vice-chancellor is under fire for his alleged inertia.

At one level, Mrinmoy’s death exposes the callousness of authorities towards students. At another, it portrays the growing lumpenisation of students.

N. Das, a history student, says, ‘‘If you can’t handle a case, you shouldn’t pretend you can, for it could cost someone his life.’’ There are instances of students having been given old medicines, adds an MSc student, Prabir Das. “You can’t expect any other reaction. I support what they have done,’’ said another.This unrest has been brewing for a while. Consider the following:

n On July 24, 1999, Tagore’s prayer hall was reportedly desecrated. A letter dated July 20, 1999 from Registrar D. Banerjee to the Officer on Special Duty (security & surveillance) described the incident: ‘‘There (at the glass temple also the prayer hall) we learnt about something which we cannot even think of even in our wildest imagination. Our Mandir...was used last night surreptitiously as a brothel.’’ Before the case was handed over to CBI, investigating police personnel reportedly disclosed that ‘‘an empty whiskey bottle was found inside the hall.’’

n During the last Durga Puja, miscreants bombed vice-chancellor Dr Dilip Sinha’s home during an agitation of casual workers in the University. ‘‘I didn’t get much of response from the police,’’ complains Dr Sinha. ‘‘Nobody knows who hurled the bombs.’

n On September 19 last year, professor Sabujkoli Mitra, head of department of philosophy, was allegedly roughed up by a student leader when she rejected his candidature. The student didn’t have the percentage for admission. The student leader walked up to the professor, twisted her hands to snatch papers and tore them off in full view of others. The professor first lodged an FIR. When the police didn’t take action, she complained to the University higher-ups, who allegedly didn’t ‘take note of the incidents seriously.’ Finally, when she threatened to move the office of the West Bengal Chief Minister, the authorities ordered a probe.

n In October last year, police arrested Malay Laha on charge of ‘running a job racket for money.’ The police rounded up Laha following a complaint by a victim who claimed that he had paid Rs 67,000 for a permanent job in the university. Later, the accused told police ‘‘he had raised Rs 195,000 from quite a few job seekers.’’‘‘Today, students are split into vested interest groups, as are the teachers,’’ says a veteran.

However, Vice Chancellor Dr D. Sinha, who is serving on extension, claims the incidents have been concocted to malign him. ‘‘A section of staff and some ‘unruly elements’ are indulging in groupism to give a bad name to the institute,’’ he says.

In fact, in an appeal to the National Human Rights Commission on December 16 last year, three staff unions Visva-Bharati Sangrami Sramik Sangha, Visva-Bharati Casual Workers Union and Visva-Bharati Asthayi Karmi Sangha had alleged that ‘‘the student community has grown unprincipled and violent beyond control... Corruption among the teaching and non-teaching members of the university is another damaging disorder.’’

At Visva-Bharati, the buzzwords have always been ‘‘academic environment’’. It was Tagore’s dream to invite students from the West to study Indian philosophy, literature, art and music in their proper environment, to reveal the Eastern mind to the world.

The university’s forte lay in areas like arts and culture, music and stage craft and pursuit of higher studies in unconventional fields, like its Chinese department set up in 1937.

Classes for the school section is still held under the shade of trees.One of the biggest casualties in recent years has been the environment. The university campus is shrinking by the day, and Visva Bharati today is surrounded by concrete. The rich and wealthy from Calcutta and other areas have set up weekend resorts, hotels and guest houses in the vicinity. According to a rough estimate, over a thousand such new constructions have come up almost in a ring round the campus.

The university’s other strength has been its well-knit student-teacher community. Till the mid-80s, in fact, there was no student union. Even now, there is only a nominated body, but those at the helm have political ambitions and often take aggressive positions.

Supriya Tagore, one of the few surviving descendants of the Tagore family in Santiniketan,says, ‘‘My heart bleeds as I witnesses Visva Bharati’s slow death. The university is steeped in dirty politics among students and teachers and between students and teachers. It’s a rat race here like anywhere else.’’Dr Sinha took over in 1995, and there are some former teachers and professors who believe things ‘‘were not as bad as it was during Sinha’s time.’’ Dr Sinha however defends himself. ‘‘I have inherited an ailing legacy. This process didn’t start with my takeover,’’ he points out.

Amita Sen, mother of the Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, has spent the better part of her life in Santiniketan: ‘‘There is a widening communication gap between the two sides now. What’s happening in Visva-Bharati , the acts of indiscipline, the violence and administrative inefficiency, are spoiling the institution. We all strive to see that this great institution lives upto Rabindranath’s ideals .’’

Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.