For Once, Mamata Banerjee Is Right: Jadavpur University Is ‘Atanka-Pur’, Thanks To Communist Radicals

Two days ago, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee came down heavily on Jadavpur University and termed it ‘Atanka-pur’, or a place where fear reigns supreme. 

The Chief Minister was referring to the death by suicide of a first year student at the Univeristy’s hostel last week. A few of his seniors who allegedly ragged him have been arrested.

All the accused belong to left radical outfits. 

“I go everywhere but I don’t visit Jadavpur University. They (the students) may be good in studies, but only education does not make them good human beings if they lack conscience or humanity,” Banerjee had publicly remarked Monday (August 14). 

Banerjee went on: “They (the students) do not allow policemen to enter the campus even when there is trouble, they don’t allow CCTVs to be installed. They rag students brutally. This prestigious institution is no longer Jadavpur, it has become ‘Atanka-pur’. I am hurt, disappointed and angry”. 

The Chief Minister noted that the seniors who ragged the first year student forced him to take off his amulet and also his clothes. 

Senior police officers who are involved in investigating the case told Swarajya that the seniors, who are all radical leftists, told the first year student that wearing an amulet or displaying any other sign of affinity towards Hinduism is taboo in the university. 

They (the seniors) also allegedly harassed and tortured the fresher sexually, thus driving him to commit suicide by jumping from the second floor balcony of the hostel. 

But such brutal ragging has long been the norm in Jadavpur University.  

Most freshers bear the physical and psychological torture in silence, though the scars remain forever. Some drop out, and those with means take up residence in private hostels or paying guest accommodation outside the campus. 

A hotbed of left radicals and anarchists

The University campus is a hotbed of radical left activities who hold the others to ransom and force other students, and even faculty, to bow down to their diktats. 

And this has been the case for more than 55 years since the scourge of Naxalism blighted Bengal. 

Many students of the University--it was founded as the National Council of Education by Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh, Rabindranath Tagore and the great revolutionary Rash Behari Bose (read this)--joined the Naxalite movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

The Naxals, among them students of Jadavpur University, let loose a reign of terror in Bengal murdering government officials, landowners, policemen, businessmen and politicians. Anyone who opposed them was labelled a ‘class enemy’ and marked for execution. 

These Naxals held the entire university to ransom and started ordering boycotts of classes and examinations. They vitiated the academic environment and education took a backseat in the campus. 

The most notorious incident on the campus, and one that remains a permanent blight in the name of Jadavpur University to this day, was the murder of Professor Gopal Chandra Sen on December 30, 1970. 

Professor Sen, who taught mechanical engineering, had taken over as interim Vice Chancellor of the University earlier that year. An honest, upright, principled and fearless man, Prof Sen had opposed a call by the Naxals to boycott semester exams. 

The Naxals warned students against taking the exams and threatened Prof Sen with dire consequences if he disobeys them and holds the exams. Not one to be cowed down by threats, Prof Sen announced he would go ahead and conduct the exams. 

This emboldened many students to take the exams. Prof Sen ensured that the answer scripts were examined and the results declared in record time.

The Naxals were incensed. A large majority of the students had taken the exams which were conducted successfully. Naxals saw this as a threat to their power and influence. 

A murdered by the name of Rana Bose

The knife punctured Prof Sen’s lungs and he bled to death. This murder shocked and shook Bengal’s academia. 

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the state police (Bengal was under President’s Rule at the time of the heinous murder) to take strong action and book the culprits. 

Rana Bose, who belonged to an influential family (his father Amiya Kumar Bose was an eminent cardiologist and a leftist), was arrested. He reportedly confessed to his role in the murder, but his father, who commanded a lot of clout, got him released on bail. 

Rana Bose jumped bail and fled to Bangladesh, and then to the United States. He ultimately settled down in Montreal (Canada) where he remained for the rest of his life. 

Eventually, Rana Bose joined the corporate world and became the Executive Vice President of a blue chip company after having ranted against private capital throughout his years as a young adult. 

Rana Bose, who died on May 10 this year, remains an ‘inspiration’ to the left radicals in not only Jadavpur University but many other university campuses in Bengal. 

When Babul Supriyo was assaulted in the campus

That explains why these leftists roughed up the then Union minister Babul Supriyo (who was in the BJP) in the university campus in September 2019.

The Union minister had gone to address a seminar organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) at an auditorium inside the campus. 

Students owing allegiance to radical left groups gheraoed and heckled him, called him names and abused him and even attempted to lynch him. 

All because they could not tolerate the presence of a minister belonging to a party they are ideologically opposed to in the campus. 

Being intolerant and undemocratic (that’s the true face of all communists anyway), the left radicals did not limit themselves to waving black flags or shouting slogans. They got physical with the Union minister and had it not been for his security guards, the Minister would have been killed, if not maimed. 

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri faced communists’ intolerance too

The left radical students of Jadavpur University also heckled filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri in early May 2016 and tried to prevent him from entering the campus.

Agnihotri had visited the campus for the screening of his film Buddha In A Traffic Jam that lampoons communists. 

The film was supposed to be screened at an auditorium in the campus, but the varsity authorities, under pressure from the left extremists and their backers in the faculty, withdrew the permission for the screening at the last minute.

The film was screened in the open through a projector on a white bedsheet with the left extremists shouting slogans at a distance. After the screening, these left extremists clashed with members of the ABVP and injured a few of the latter. 

There have been many other incidents of a similar nature in the Jadavpur University campus. The left radical students terrorise others, including many faculty members and the varsity administration. 

These students enjoy the patronage of some faculty members who are openly sympathetic to Maoism and indoctrinate students into Maoist philosophy. This indoctrination is responsible for the continuing vice-like grip of left radicals on academic and non-academic activities in the JU campus. 

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hit the nail on the head when she described Jadavpur University campus as ‘Atanka-pur’.

She should now follow that up with tough measures to rid the campus of the influence of the communists and restore an amicable academic environment free of fear and terror in Jadavpur University.