The Voice Below The Kolorob

Being born and brought up in the sleepy metropolis of Calcutta, I will perhaps never forget the ‘Students’ Movement’ that rocked the city in September of 2014. The movement reached its peak perhaps on the afternoon of the 20^th of September when a mass rally and walk was organized from the Rabindra Sadan to the Gandhi Statue on Mayo Road – a 2.3 km walk in torrential rain. Nearly 70,000 people of different universities, religions, castes, languages, qualifications and political alignments braved the fear of going down with pneumonia by turning up for the event. The organizers of this mass rally ended the day’s walk by initiating a 5-hour occupation of Mayo Road and JL Nehru Road which they called ‘Occupy Dharmatala’. The occupation ended when the Governor of the state, Mr. KN Tripathi , who is also the de-facto Chancellor of Jadavpur University, agreed to look into the demands of the students, the demands of removing the Vice Chancellor, pro-Vice Chancellor and Registrar from Jadavpur University.

Now, this causes one to ask the very pertinent question – What happened at Jadavpur University that prompted a reaction on such a massive scale?

To answer that question one must refer back to an on-campus-incident which took place in the last days of August 2014 in which a female student complained of molestation by a few male students near the University hostel complex. Now, irrespective of what the female student claims, the truth about this incident is still very much debatable with numerous versions of the story being circulated on campus. Some versions, infact, make it very difficult to sympathize with the female student at all. Having not talked to the ‘victim’ or the ‘accused’ personally, I will refrain from spewing out the rumours here. However, two things, most definitely cannot be denied. Firstly, despite all efforts to deem the movement following this incident as ‘apolitical’, the incident itself was politically-influenced with the girl in question and the ‘accused’ being of radically opposite political alignments, which was one of the basic reasons for the altercation between the two parties. Secondly, whether there was molestation or not, something happened in the University premises that night before and after the altercation involving the girl, which should not have happened.

The mass movement hence began originally on 3^rd September 2014, demanding proper investigation into the incident by the University authorities. In the meantime, the Vice-Chancellor Dr. Abhijit Chakraborty formed an investigation committee which he maintains, was in accordance with Supreme Court specifications. The composition of this committee was however, rejected by the student unions on campus as they feared that the committee will be biased in its investigation. Now as already mentioned, the situation to begin with was influenced by politics and Dr. Chakraborty had his political inclination which perhaps was the obvious thorn on the path to an unbiased investigation. Now, I was all for an investigation into the incident, which would have implicated the guilty and if not anything else, removed the untrue versions of the incident from fogging the campus. What I fail to agree with is the manner in which the student unions demanded the same from the VC.

With the second point in mind, it hence, becomes imperative to make the campus safer for the thousands of students and professors who study and work here respectively and the Vice Chancellor wanted to do exactly this through installation of CCTV cameras throughout the campus, by improving lighting in the campus, by evicting outsiders from the campus, by introducing a system of entry into the campus based on Identity Cards and by preventing anyone from remaining on campus post 8pm. These proposals were all forward-looking and progressive , in my opinion, paving the way towards making Jadavpur University a ‘disciplined’ and ‘professional’ institution for all-round excellence. However , the student unions objected to the VC’s ideas citing reasons such as ‘loss of freedom’ ,’introduction of elitism’, ‘detachment from the outside world’, ‘inconveniencing students who forget to carry ID cards’ etc. All these reasons seemed ludicrous to me. In reality, not all the students but a good number of them do smoke on campus (despite signs prohibiting smoking on campus), do drink on campus, do immerse themselves into a state of oblivion through the taking of drugs and smoking of weed and cannabis and do engage in sexual activities in darkened jheel-paar (lakeside) or on the vast expanse of the football field. It is these people , with intoxicants and power in their hands, whose daily lives will be interrupted due to the VC’s propose rules and it is for the sake of a few that Jadavpur University will perhaps forgo the opportunity to progress yet again.

Anyway, thus with an iron-clad intention of opposing the VC’s ideas and forming a new investigating committee the student unions protested outside Aurobindo Bhavan , the seat of power at Jadavpur University, from 2pm on the 16^th of September 2014. The mode of protest quickly turned into Jadavpur’s favourite , a ‘Gherao’- where the students block all exits and entrances thus trapping the authorities inside the building , not letting them leave till they agree to their demands. I cannot adequately put into words my immense dislike for ‘Gheraoing’. Being a student of a Christian Missionary school, Don Bosco Park Circus, I cannot imagine a situation where I am blocking my teacher’s path because he/she has not given in to my requests. After all, he/she is a teacher, irrespective of my personal feelings towards him/her and notwithstanding his/her age, he/she is more qualified than I am and deserves that basic shred of respect from me. However, the students who gheraoed the VC obviously had no such moral restrictions and with no thought whatsoever into the inconvenience to the VC’s family that they might be causing, they continued the Gherao well past midnight.

With a family to go to and a worried family, indeed, the Vice Chancellor did what most men in his position would have done – he called the police for help. In the wee hours on 17^th September, armed police officers entered the Jadavpur University campus and escorted the trapped authorities out and then asked the students to leave. The students refused and the police launched an ambush attack on the students armed with only camera phones and Bengali expletives. More than 25 students were hospitalized following the attack and more than 30 were jailed. As despicable as this incident was , I find it hard to fault the Vice Chancellor for the attack because indeed he did call the police to ensure his own safety but there is no proof whatsoever that he forced the police to attack the students . The only incident that should be protested against here is armed police attack on the students, especially armed male police officers attacking female students while female officers stood and watched.

It is because of this dastardly act by the Kolkata Police and the RAF team at roughly 2 am on the 17^th of September that the movement picked up momentum and gathering steam snowballed into a mass movement across barriers demanding the resignation of Dr. Chakraborty. The incessant lying of the Police Commissioner Mr SK Purakayasta on national television , added fat to fire as the movement got louder and louder with the slogan “Hok kolorob” meaning “Let there be noise”. The movement , albeit a one that awoke the sleepy city and showed people that the young heart of the city still beats powerfully yet non-violently, however has meandered off from its original course of demanding an unbiased investigation into the ‘molestation’ incident and has turned into a full-blown personal vendetta against Dr. Chakraborty and the other authorities.

What the student unions do not realize and what one of my close friends (whose name I will not reveal for various reasons) is that by demanding the resignation of Dr. Chakraborty , they are only causing the empty chair to be filled in by someone with the same political inclinations again which will simply continue the vicious cycle. Instead the movement should have focused on changing the way the Vice Chancellor is selected, not by political parties (as was the case with Dr. Chakraborty) but by an independent and unbiased in-campus committee. The demand for the resignation of the Pro-VC and Registrar is baffling to say the least , simply because they have from the beginning of the movement extended their support to the students , condemning the police action (unlike the VC) and even visiting the injured students .

Also, by harping again and again on the fact that the movement is an apolitical one, the student unions have contradicted the very cornerstone of all movements “You have to be in it to change it”. The movement which has widely been hailed as a movement for Jadavpur University and against a certain political party in power in West Bengal is swaying people’s trust from the ruling party but not providing them with a political alternative in the elections. They are aiming to change the political contours of the state without being in politics themselves, a rather strange proposition.

It is very easy to move in the direction of the tide but extremely difficult to walk against it. The Vice Chancellor and the University authorities may have been wrong on many counts. The Kolkata Police was definitely wrong in carrying out an armed attack against students, especially girls, in the dead of night. However, that in no way hides the fact that the initial mistakes were all committed by the students. We have committed a million mistakes and it is because of our mistakes, it is because we could not repay the trust the authorities placed on us by giving us multiple freedoms that today there must be measures taken immediately to ensure campus safety. Jadavpur University still basks in its erstwhile glory days and no matter how many students one shows me who have left other institutions to join this University, it does not change the truth. The University has the potential to become the best in the nation and beyond but the first change has to come in the change-resistant mentality of the students. The change always begins with us.

A student caught cheating in the exam, if detained in college, till 2am the next morning will become the poster boy of ‘inhumanly treatment’ but when the same is done to an elderly gentleman, it is a revolution?

The end, most definitely, does not justify the means and if the means are such then the end achieved is pointless as humanity loses for the sake of a small victory.