By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
As we approach the end of 2017, one thing that can be established without much debate is that this year has been rough for Banaras Hindu University by all accounts. In this context, it seems only apt that the University has been without a Vice-Chancellor for three months and counting. Prof GC Tripathi – one of the most controversial VCs even by BHU standards – went on leave in the first few days of October and came back to the University only for his farewell. During and after this period, Neeraj Tripathi – University’s registrar – has taken the additional charge of Acting Vice Chancellor. Even as the University continues to look for a new VC, students and faculty believe that whoever takes up the job will have some choices to make and even tougher decisions to execute.
Mahesh Prasad Ahirwar, a professor at the Social Sciences Faculty of BHU believes that the upcoming VC at the University has the chief task to liberate the university from Sanghi outfits. “The university has seen the infection of Sangh spread inside the teaching fraternity as well as in the students also. Leaning towards any ideology is not objectionable, but when the same goes on to demolish the social fabric inside a university, one must ensure to check it. That is where the vice-chancellor may have to work,” said Ahirwar.
Since the General elections of 2014, there is a continuous rise in the “nationalist” and respect for “Malviya values” inside the campus of BHU. Be it inviting leaders of Sangh for the seminar on Communal Harmony or inviting leaders and ministers belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party for seminars, BHU has gone “Full Saffron” and – as Ahirwar clearly states it – “a stage for the naked dance of Brahminism”, all thanks to Prof GC Tripathi.
As one of the professors from the administrative set up of BHU recalls, “Soon after Tripathi came as VC, he started appointing Brahmins on key posts. He even created few posts for the persons who were close to him.”
It is important to note that prior to Tripathi, three previous vice-chancellors were from Thakur community and were infamous for filling up key posts with those belonging to Thakur community.
Prof Ahirwar states, “Upcoming VC has to bring the transparency in the system as well. The university has been filling vacant seats with almost only General category students and there are episodes of caste discrimination every now and then in the university. So in addition to the transparency, the new VC will have to look forward towards ending the caste discrimination on the university campus.”
Issues pointed out by Professor Ahirwar are just some of the tough issues that the campus has faced in 2017. In August, an investigation disclosed the close nexus between the University officials and BJP MLA Harsh Bajpai which resulted in deaths of at least 14 people in the first week of June 2017.
Bajpai’s firm Parerhat Industries Private Limited did not have the licence to produce and supply medical Nitrous Oxide but he was awarded the tender in a complete disregard for all norms. The matter is currently subjudice and the university is facing trial in the Allahabad High Court.
Even before the University could recover from these allegations, it was revealed that University – in alleged patronage and guidance of Prof GC Tripathi – was appointing upper-caste candidates as teachers for vacancies in the reserved category. It was listed as the most prime episode of caste discrimination since BJP came to power in the centre and Tripathi – whose appointment was allegedly pushed up by RSS – did not flinch to go against the UGC and DoPT guidelines for appointments. This matter too is under hearing in Allahabad High Court and the Court may cancel the advertisement based on which the upper-caste students were appointed.
BHU campus as well as Varanasi – Narendra Modi’s Loksabha Constituency – was jolted on September 22 this year, when girls of the campus stood for their safety and blocked the BHU’s main gate for more than 40 hours asking the VC Tripathi to meet them. But instead meeting the girls, Tripathi ordered and requested university’s proctorial board as well as district administration for use of force which ended the girls’ protest rather brutally.
Even after the incident, the safety of students inside the campus is still at stake. There have been several episodes of violence, protest, eve-teasing and harassment after September 22, which often go unreported.
The levels of gender discrimination disturb Binda Paranjpe, a professor at Department of History, who thinks that upcoming VC must take steps towards sensitising the administrative setup. “BHU shows very little sensitivity towards women. The administration has been ignoring the rights of women inside the campus, and when the time comes to end this discrimination and ensure the women participation more and more, university limits it to provide protection to the women inside the campus,” she said.
Prof Paranjape added, “As once my friends said, girls do not need protection here, or everyone here needs an equal amount of protection. Girls need a more liberal and equal campus environment where they have a say. I suppose that is where the upcoming VC should look forward.”
On December 20 last week, violence erupted again inside the BHU campus after Ashutosh Singh Ishu, a student leader from Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha – Student wing of Samajwadi Party – was arrested in relation to his involvement in violence at IIT-BHU in the month of November. Ashutosh Singh Ishu has been notorious inside the campus for his anti-social activities, but as on student from Faculty of Arts says, “No one dares to support Ashutosh Singh’s arrest because he has been backed by the BHU administration and is notoriously active in extorting money from the shop-owners inside BHU.” Maybe this was the reason when violence after Singh’s arrest was termed as “Student movement”, which was apparently a violent step being taken by some boys trying to protect one goon from being arrested.
Shriprakash Shukla, a professor at Department of Hindi, maps the BHU’s recent time as a transition that has turned BHU to a “trade centre” from being a “trendsetter”. Prof Shukla said, “We know that there are several faculty members inside the campus who are involved in unlawful activities. But when a protest emerges, the students here just forget to differentiate the good from the bad. That is the reason good faculty members are being targeted every time something surfaces inside the campus.”
“There is a lack of healthy political and social dialogue inside the campus. And more than that, strong administrative action against culprit professors and officials is also lacking, which looks like administration is silently backing those who are culprit in some unlawful cases. Same is with the students. They steer any movement without any prior judgement of the issues or the person,” said Prof Shukla. “Upcoming VC has the task to sanitise those people who are maligning the whole teaching fraternity of BHU either by corruption or by any other sort of crime or favouritism,” he said.
Even according to those faculty members who have committed themselves towards right-wing propaganda, BHU is doomed to boot-licking, favouritism and unusual violence. Prof Kaushal Kishor Mishra, the Professor at Department of Political Science who rose to fame after asking students questions on Manu, Kautilya and GST and an essay on Bhartiya Janta Party, said, “I may have a different ideology than most of the person you have been talking. But I know one thing for sure that VC Tripathi, I don’t know why and how appointed several people just to gather around him and give him ideas and recommendations.”
“Those people and Tripathi did not pay attention to the real problems in the university. ABVP and Samajwadi students land in a fight every day. Both of these groups seem to have a free hand from the BHU administration. Why did Tripathi not take a step to stop all these? What opportunity he was seeking into these acts of violence?” says Prof Mishra. “Upcoming VC at BHU has to look at these things so that we can have a sound and non-violent peaceful political dialogue, irrespective of what kind of politics we would be addressing.”
For the students at BHU, the rights of the students inside the campus are being crushed and the administration is nowhere near to restore it. Armaan Anand, a research scholar at Hindi department, said, “Regional favouritism is the thing which has to be ended very soon. Be it GC Tripathi or other vice-chancellors before him, they all seem to have favoured staff and students from their village or hometown districts, and it led to the destruction of talent.”
“We need an environment where things should be discussed with us first, rather than being just a diktat. New VC should also ensure the formation of GSCASH (Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment) so that we can report and demand the fast and hard action against any case of sexual harassment which comes in this university,” said Ananya Singh, an MA student at Arts Faculty.
BHU has always denied any charge for its actions or planning. Dr OP Upadhyay was made CMS at Sir Sunderlal Hospital of BHU, even after he was charged with committing rape in Fiji. But University ignored this fact, and many other such facts in appointing many people who are putting a blot on Malviya Ji ki Bagiya (The garden of Malviya).