Explained: The massive students’ protest roiling Visva-Bharati, which has forced the registrar to resign

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Why have students been protesting on the Visva-Bharati campus?

The string of resignations came in the backdrop of relentless agitation by a section of students on campus.

The students have been holding protests since February 28, demanding that hostels be reopened, and the pending semester examinations of undergraduate and post-graduate courses be held in the online mode, since teaching over the past two years has been online.

In-person classes began on December 1, 2021, and the university decided to hold regular pen-and-paper exams. Hostels, however, remained shut, forcing students to pay for board and lodging in Bolpur town, where Visva-Bharati is located. It is estimated that 90 per cent of the more than 5,000 students at the university are out-of-towners who are dependent on hostels.

How have the protests progressed so far?

* On March 1, protesting students confined registrar Agarwal to his office as they raised their demands.

* On March 2, Visva-Bharati moved Calcutta High Court against the confinement of the registrar and other university officials. It told the court that the agitation was disrupting the normal functioning of the university.

* On March 3, the High Court extended police protection to the registrar, assistant registrar, and the management of Visva-Bharati to help them carry out their day-to-day responsibilities on the campus without problems.

The court also directed the students to not obstruct the functioning of the university in any way. The students denied having gheraoed anyone, and said they had been protesting peacefully for the immediate reopening of hostels. They said their peaceful protest would continue until their demands were met.

* On March 4, Agarwal was escorted out of his office on campus by police after spending 84 hours under gherao by protesting students.

* On March 8, Calcutta High Court directed Visva-Bharati authorities to immediately reopen the hostels. A single-judge Bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha directed police to break open locks of hostels in the presence of two student representatives and six university officials.

The court also said that students who agree to sit for exams soon should get priority in allotment of hostel rooms, and directed police to ensure that no university official is prevented from discharging their duties.

* On March 10, the university reopened two of the 26 hostels, but soon shut them again.

* Subsequently, the university issued a notification saying those who failed to appear for exams would have to repeat a year. This provoked fresh anger on campus and, in the evening of March 14, the students confined the registrar and other officials at Bangladesh Bhavana on campus. The registrar resigned the following day.

How has the university reacted to the protests?

On March 10, Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty issued a video appeal to save the university from politics. He blamed outsiders among the protesting students, and accused Left-leaning students of spearheading the agitation.

After the registrar resigned, Chakraborty said the university was working to reopen hostels. The university has not, however, withdrawn the notification on holding in-person exams as yet.

“We are trying to reopen the hostels. We have identified 15 such hostels with 439 rooms which will be opened. The registrar has resigned from his post because of the continuous protests by a section of the students with the help of outsiders. We feel that the protest is politically motivated. The students did not allow some students to appear in the examination. They started their agitation again and resorted to gherao tactics from 4 pm yesterday. They even threatened to kill some of our officials if their demands were not met,” Chakraborty said.

Has anyone supported the students’ agitation?

The Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association (VBUFA) has extended support to the protesting students and accused the university of ignoring their justified demands.

“Instead of listening to them, the university has adopted a confrontational approach. They want to use the iron fist. This will not help resolve the matter. Many teachers and officials are resigning because of the decisions taken by the vice-chancellor. More will follow if this situation continues,” a university teacher said.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), students’ wing of the BJP, too has called for hostels to be reopened. Some ABVP members have protested outside the V-C’s official resistance. The ABVP has said that the “anti-student” notice threatening to fail all those who remain absent in the exams, should be withdrawn, and at least 15 days should be given to every student to prepare for offline exams after they have been provided with hostel accommodation.

Left students too have backed the protesters.

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