What’s behind stalemate at Tezpur University? Months of simmering anger, then a spark in Zubeen’s death

The stalemate, though, continues.

Protesting staff and students have decided to continue with their “shutdown”, even as the end-of-semester examinations, which were earlier supposed to begin on December 3 and were postponed because of the protests, began on Thursday.

The protesters have declared that the stand-off will continue until “concrete action” is taken. Last Saturday’s meeting between the team from the Ministry of Education and representatives of students and staff ended with a handwritten note by Higher Education Joint Secretary Saumya Gupta, stating that the department is “committed to initiate a strict and time-bound enquiry” against the Vice Chancellor.

Vice Chancellor Singh has been in charge at the university since March 2023. Protesters have presented their allegations against him before the MoE and a fact-finding team that had been constituted by the state’s Governor.

The allegations

The primary allegation that they levelled pertains to financial irregularities, which protesters say date back far before the spark for the protest was lit. For instance, the Tezpur University Teachers’ Association has pointed towards the procurement of furniture worth Rs 14 crore, including 1,016 beds, chairs and tables each for hostels and 864 desk-cum-benches, all procured from one brand. The association has alleged that the procurement was “manipulated through restrictive specifications and unauthorised changes to favour a specific brand, resulting in the delivery of substandard furniture that did not meet the tender’s dimensions or quality requirements”.

They have similarly alleged irregularities in the procurement of laptops, library books, and several other items. Misgivings over the utilisation of resources, teachers have alleged, have led to stand-offs in the past as well.

Earlier this year, the university received a grant under the Department of Science and Technology’s Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence (PURSE) programme. “As part of the project, 11 instruments worth Rs 7 crore were supposed to be procured. An 11-member PURSE project committee, most of whom are experienced in working in the field, consulted multiple firms and presented a proposal for the tender. The VC, who is from the unrelated field of Mass Communications, changed the specifications without our prior knowledge and a tender was floated in August. The whole committee objected immediately and expressed our reservations that it wouldn’t be a competitive tender. However, soon the protests started, and the tenders were withdrawn,” a professor who was part of the project committee alleged.

What added to the resentment, a senior university administrator alleged, was a high-handed and dismissive approach.

“We have been listening to a rude, sarcastic and humiliating way of addressing colleagues for the last two-and-a-half years, including in meetings. This had been simmering. And this is a relatively smaller university community. There are about 5,000 students and 400 staff members, so people see and are aware of these things. His behaviour when Zubeen Garg passed away became a tipping point for all of that anger to come to the surface,” said the administrator.

Amidst the emotional outpouring that took place in Assam with superstar singer Zubeen Garg’s death on September 19, the university’s student council elections were held on September 20.

“He was not in the university again during that time, and we had the student council elections the day after Zubeen Garg’s death, despite there being state mourning and us asking that it be postponed as a mark of respect,” said a student from the Tezpur University Students’ Fraternity.

Another major grievance both staff and students have raised is the VC’s prolonged absences from the campus — the teachers’ association has calculated an alleged 388 days of absence from April 2023 to September 2025.

“Our requests for permission to hold a condolence meet (after Garg’s death) were treated with insensitivity, and because we were all so shaken at that time, it became a breaking point, and students started protesting. Then our teachers’ association also expressed support, and informed us of all the irregularities that were happening, so the protests grew,” claimed a student.

The VC declined to respond to The Indian Express despite multiple attempts to seek his comment.

In a written statement issued at the start of the protests, addressed to the university community, Singh denied allegations of irregularities, saying, “Every expenditure undergoes due process and audit scrutiny, and no funds are ever utilised for purposes beyond what is legitimately permitted.”