The fracas occasioned by the visit of singer-turned-BJP-parliamentarian Babul Supriyo on the campus of Jadavpur University has left behind a precious moral fable.Despite clear indications to the contrary for years now, the fig leaf of institutional autonomy was still a part of legislative lore – with which we covered up the shameful exposure of our universities to the political establishment. Supriyo stripped the myth down to its real obscenity, in his short snatches of conversation with the vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University.Even while the mayhem was raging on, and university property vandalised, videos surfaced on social media of the Union minister angrily chiding the VC about having orchestrated the protests against him. A visibly perturbed Suranjan Das, a well-known academic in his own right, was questioned about why he did not come to “receive” the minister on his visit. Just as Das was seen explaining to Supriyo that the event in question was organised by a student political outfit (ABVP), to which he himself was not invited, the BJP leader’s aggression peaked into a convulsive tirade: “I am sure you are a leftist!”Whether or not Das is a leftist is a redundant debate. What is significant is Supriyo’s accusation – that to be a leftist is to be a criminal, a violator of “law and order”.Also read: Babul Supriyo ‘Calls’ Newspaper Editor Demanding Apology For JU Incident ReportingFrom a government that packs its jails with human rights activists and calls them “urban Naxals”, names “a red-coloured book” found at G.N. Saibaba’s residence as incriminating evidence, unleashes its police contingent to raid houses of university teachers for ‘leftist’ books, and stocks university administrations with stooges who demand CVs from arguably the best living historian of the country, this should not be unexpected. But as a society, we must be deeply worried if ‘leftist’ beliefs in themselves are regarded as a transgression of the law.That one statement by a Union minister, within a university campus, spells doom for the Indian constitution and its inaugural pledge to a secular socialist imagination.To return to the immediate context of the verbal assault on Das, it might be useful to alert the minister to how universities are instituted through Acts of parliament as structurally ‘autonomous’ bodies. Section 9(1)(b)(ii) of the Jadavpur University Act strives for this autonomy by maintaining that “a person shall not be qualified to be the Vice Chancellor if he is a member of, or otherwise associated with, any political party”.Legally therefore, a VC “receiving” a Union minister attending the institution for a political event may be regarded as acting in a “partisan manner while in office” – a substantive ground for removal of a VC, as per the Act. It would be a patent lie to claim that such sights of servility are uncommon in state-funded higher educational institutions, but to openly demand them is to make peace with the feudal roots of the Indian university. To pretend otherwise is to at least acknowledge the difference between what is practised and what is just.Babul Supriyo – representing a party whose prime minister believes that a Harvard degree is worth less than his own ‘hard work’ – was soon seen commanding the VC (now, an alleged ‘leftist’) to do some ‘work’ by fetching him a glass of water.What is the ‘work’ that liberal metropolitan state universities (like Jadavpur University) are expected to do, and for which the provincial public-funded universities provide a model already? On September 18, just a day before Supriyo’s misadventure, the VC of the Central University of South Bihar – in the Hindi heartland of Gaya – set an example of the ‘hard working’ Indian university. This is an institution which has ranked itself into the dregs of the national frameworks of excellence, and aspires to ‘world-class’ pedagogy in the near future.Having invited “His Holiness Puripeethadhishwar Jagatguru Shankaracharya Swami Nishchalananda Saraswati Jee” (the Puri Shankaracharya), the said VC was seen prostrating himself on stage while a newly-appointed teacher of physics was made to perform a ‘paduka-poojan’ (worshipping the saint’s footwear).Also read: At Event for Persons With Disabilities, BJP MLA Babul Supriyo Threatens to Break Man’s Leg, Hand Him a CrutchThe VC welcomed the Lord Almighty’s delegate – in the presence of all local RSS functionaries – by ruing that he could not invite a ‘sant’ (saint) to inaugurate his university campus. However, this grand academic lecture, on the “nature and relevance of Vedic mathematics”, was his mode of penance. There was acoustic accompaniment all through, with vows of cow protection and demands for a ban on cow slaughter.Needless to say, this was the accurate setting and build-up to a seminar that Supriyo perhaps wanted in Jadavpur University. But alas – unlike Shankaracharya, who ducked mathematics altogether to talk about how universities must counter materialist knowledge and communist belief-systems, Supriyo started flexing his muscles by linking ‘leftism’ to a VC. The ‘sant’ instead chronicled how the first batch of students from Banaras Hindu University – contrary to its founder Malaviya’s intentions – grew up to be “communists”, and how that long tradition of misdirected university learning is now sought to be corrected by cleaning (safaai) JNU of “communists”.Clearly, Supriyo’s pronouncement on Jadavpur University’s VC is part of the “surgical strike” that BJP leaders have been plotting on college campuses. It is a strike which, as their patron-saint in Shankaracharya believes, will heal the Indian university of its germs of thinking and questioning the powers that be. The tottering Indian economy needs to re-erect the university as a ‘temple’ – of ‘learning’, as they say. Of learning to obey.Debaditya Bhattacharya teaches literature at Kazi Nazrul University, West Bengal. He has previously taught at central as well as state universities and colleges in Delhi, Bihar and Bengal.
