By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Violent incidents in Banaras Hindu University have been on a rise in the past three years according to students, and the worrying part is that we are not talking about petty issues here: incidents range from a clash between student groups from different political ideologies to rape of an undergraduate student inside the campus.
Students add that the campus had been relatively peaceful until 2014, but after the appointment of the new VC Prof. GC Tripathi, things took a turn for the worse. Soon after the VC took charge, violence erupted between Science and Art faculty students for no apparent reason following which students were suspended. And for the first time in many years, the Police entered the campus. Groups of PAC and local police camped inside the BHU for quite a few days.
BHU had to issue a clarification on their website regarding the incident, following which the situation calmed down for a bit. However, this did not last long as various students’ rights groups started protesting against the fee hike and various other issues.
The year of 2016 was one of the most violently active years of the university. The year saw a series of clashes between student groups. On April 6, 2016, students of science and arts faculties landed in a tussle with each other. An unknown suspect also fired some bullets from the revolver. The incident left at least ten students injured. Following this incident, the year continued to be violent. Here is a timeline of various incidents that troubled BHU in the recent past:
August 13, 2016: A male student of Hindi department was raped by an employee of Institute of Medical Sciences. The accused employee was sent on leave to prevent arrest. No official could speak for the story over the issue. Later on, accused employee was arrested and is facing trial. To make it even more troubling, reports emerged that the incident took place on University Road, just a few meters away from the VC’s house.
September 1, 2016: Violence occurred between resident doctors of Sir Sunderlal Hospital of BHU and some students over the treatment of another injured student. Students vandalised BHU’s trauma center and Dhanwantari hostel at midnight and burnt around 30 bikes of resident doctors.
November 24, 2016: Proctorial board members had a fight with students on the matter of parking inside BHU hospital.
February 3, 2017: A student named Rahul, a resident of Birla hostel, was beaten up following personal issues with another party. But students made an issue out of this, blocked the road and pelted stones on departments and vehicles.
February 18, 2017: Students attacked shopkeepers outside the University over a small dispute of price negotiation. This resulted in a mass brawl between shopkeepers and students of the university which lasted for more than 8 hours. Several civilian properties were damaged.
It is important to point out that these are just some of the incidents that we are documenting. Besides this, there are several incidents of protesting students being attacked by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Such incidents have become frequent and have, in fact, picked up since the recent state assembly elections.
BHU has always been considered a hotspot of student tussle during the winters. There was a saying inside the BHU campus that “BHU Sardi mein aur bhi Garm ho jata hai (BHU gets hot in the winters)”, pointing towards the fact that most of the student clashes were encountered during the months of Winter.
But the trend has changed in the last three years, with every season bringing along a fresh set of troubles. A research scholar of the University, Akhil Kumar Shrivastava, told TwoCircles.net, “Earlier the cases mostly belonged to the dispute between administrative officials and students. Now, that does not happen anymore.”
Shrivastava, who has spent more than a decade in the university studying here since graduation, said, “Now the students get angry over even the smallest issue. They can fight with a Paanwala or a food vendor and make a whole violent event around that. And I can say that it is just the development of last three years.”
Shrivastava is right in many senses. Banaras Hindu University has been conditioned in such a way that there is no place for dissent. Many compare it with other college-level institutes of the state. One postgraduate student from science faculty Karan Singh said, “Since GC Tripathi came into the campus, the University’s behaviour is becoming more like the Allahabad University,” pointing towards the heated environment of Allahabad University from where the current VC Tripathi comes.
Tripathi is a man of controversial stature. Currently, he is accused of conducting recruitment process by practically defying the reservation quota. When the various students were protesting to open the cyber library for 24 hours, VC Tripathi was quoted as saying, “They want to do it as they watch porn in cyber library”.
During the Lok Sabha election in 2014, TV journalist Rajdeep Sardesai wrongly accused Tripathi of sharing the rally car with PM Modi during the election campaign. When Tripathi heard of this, he said, “Rajdeep Sardesai ko aane dijiye, unko campus mein ladkon se pitwaaunga (Let Rajdeep Sardesai come in the campus, I will let my boys beat him),” as if he has been controlling the students in the University.
One faculty, on the condition of anonymity, told TwoCircles.net, “It is right in saying that our VC is now in charge several students, who mostly belong to Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. And many times he has set them loose for vandalism and violence around the campus.”
The extent of the closeness of VC Tripathi with fringe elements can be understood with the fact that Emeritus professor MP Singh at Law College of the University told this reporter once, “I have two papers to teach to the law students, and both of those papers contain exclusive mention of Marxism. Now the students who are close to VC record my class lectures and communicate the same to the VC. I don’t know what to do with about this kind of ‘support’ between these two bodies.”
However, University denies all such allegations and put it on the heads of “activist-kind-of-people” or “so-called-journalists” of manipulating and maligning the name of the University.
University’s PRO Rajesh Singh once labelled the last year’s rape victim as “mentally challenged, who was trying to smear the name of the University.”
In fact, far from apologising about his remarks, Singh said, “I can tell from my personal experience that violent incidents are declining inside the University. And they have dropped drastically.”
“And this credit goes to our VC whose constant efforts have made this University a safe place for all.”
Singh chose to ignore the VC’s controversial remarks over Rajdeep Sardesai and protesting students and said, “I do not want to go to that page. But I can assure you that VC ji has ensured fewer terminations and suspensions of the students and faculties.”
“Koi ungali agar sad jaati hai, to us ungli ko kaat hi dena chaahiye (If a finger rots, it is good to cut that finger out)” was what Singh had to say when we asked about the suspension of the students who were protesting to open cyber library for 24 hours.
Singh’s comment is also exposed when one looks at the fact that the University is currently involved in a number of cases in the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court has currently scheduled the hearing of a gender discrimination case against BHU, a case where BHU was dictating the girl students of hostels to “behave”, “talk” and “wear” properly.
Just a couple of weeks back, a girl was expelled from the hostel on the assumptions of being a homosexual. There was no action is mentioned in the University’s Constitution for the homosexuality, making it a crime. BHU is surely hitting the newspapers, but it is also clear that most of them are due to all the wrong reasons.