An ordinary person stood up to protect the university as a space of free expression. By Sourav Roy Barman
Anti-nationals, urban naxals —
these epithets are recent additions to our public discourse, but the tendency
to pigeonhole voices of dissent and resistance as “leftists” or “Maoists”
predates the Narendra
Modi government. Much before Babul Supriyo heaped scorn on the
vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University, Mamata Banerjee had
called my friend, a student of Presidency College, a “Maoist” on national
television, for questioning her government’s track record on women’s safety.
The disdain for
critical thinking coming out of our universities aside, such statements advance
the notion of a society besieged by inimical forces, in desperate need of a
decisive and strong leader to tackle the imagined adversary. The project to
demonise students of public universities as rootless elites falters on one
count though. It fails to factor in the capacity of seemingly ordinary
individuals, an intrinsic part of those ecosystems, to pull off extraordinary
acts. Like one Pramod Sain did, nearly eight years ago. This is his story.
Having been elevated
to university status in 2010, Kolkata’s Presidency College, founded in 1818,
was then struggling to deal with the pangs of transition. The institution’s
students’ union was dissolved during the upgradation, and the Trinamool
government was in no hurry to hold fresh elections.... read more:
