A Tragedy Called Presidency
By Jawhar Sircar
(English version of article published
in Ananda Bazar Patrika, 12th & 13th April 2018 )
The
basic problem with Presidency College is that it transcended its role as a
teaching institution more than 150 years ago during the Renaissance, and has
had to live up to its role as the metaphor for the intellectual excellence of Bengal. There has
been a concern over its falling standards for several decades since the
Naxalite movement shattered education in Bengal, when we were students. But the
fact that many in our generation still
managed to come up in life may belie this judgement. It is, however, true that
the Left government’s anti elitist policies did hurt Presidency and we must also acknowledge that
other colleges improved a lot — which is very good. Monopolies cannot continue
for ever and democracy is meant to challenge privilege and monopoly. What hurt
more was the untrammelled power that some teachers’ associations enjoyed for
almost 30 years. They tormented and demoralised several outstanding teachers of
Presidency College who did not toe their line and utilised the ‘circulatory transfer
policy’ for government college teachers to send many to Cooch Behar or
Jhargram. They also managed to post some quite undeserving teachers into
Presidency, but I have seen the-then CM struggle a lot to protect excellence in
his alma mater. He finally managed to convince the hardliners to grant the
college the status of a university in July 2010. The current chief minister,
who came to power ten months later, went several steps ahead. She set up a
Mentor Group within a month, under Sugata Bose and extended total support to
Presidency. This Group included several excellent academics and Amartya Sen
publicly backed the initiative.
But
if so much assistance and importance is showered on Presidency, why is it that
the university is failing in real terms —especially in the last few years? It
is really painful to see that it does not appear among the first 100 best
universities in the latest National Institutional Ranking of the Human Resources
Development Ministry. Jadavpur university
has stood 6th and Calcutta university is 14th, but
Presidency is far behind Kayani and Burdwan universities. Dozens of lesser
known universities have shamed Presidency — like Koneru Lakshmaiah University
of Vaddeswaram, Algappa University of Karaikudi and even Mizoram University.
The excuse given by the authorities is that it is a “new university” and
therefore its position sank is just not acceptable. Two years ago, when it was
even “newer”, it managed to be among the first fifty in this prestigious
ranking. The university authorities were so obsessed in spending many, many
crores of public funds to convert the heritage buildings of Presidency to 5-star levels, much of it quite unnecessarily so, that they
found little time to improve education and research. They were thrown out of
the list of 100 best universities and everyone is ashamed, except a rather
peculiar Vice Chancellor, who parades her commercial tastes so proudly.
In the
last three years, academic standards and the university’s reputation has suffered
as many outstanding teachers have left the university. Among them were senior
reputed professors like Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Somak Roychowdhury, as well
as several others, who were uncomfortable with the Vice Chancellor’s style of
functioning. Others who were approached by the Mentor Group and were giving
Presidency a serious thought after a long time, just dropped the idea. Numerous
posts of Distinguished Professors were created to attract talent but except one
local professor, none joined or stayed back. Again, the reasons lie in the
stifling atmosphere created. Teachers usually know how to get along with other
professors, but even a non-academic like the present VC, who has worked mainly
as a Central laboratory scientist, could have picked up this accommodative spirit in
the last four years. She is now busy distributing an expensive, glossy coffee
table book that the university has published for self publicity — like private
companies do to impress banks for loans. Paradoxically, this book shows many of
Bengal’s icons who were once connected
with Presidency, look rather sadly at departments like Mathematics, Statistics,
English, Bengali, Philosophy and Sociology that
are being run without a single Professor or even a senior Associate Professor.
It goes to the credit of young Assistant Professors that they keeping the university going, along with a
handful of seniors. This man-made crisis pushed down the university’s score far below others, where the national
grading body, NAAC, was
concerned. Even the previous Presidency College, which had lesser support from the government, scored
better in the NAAC grading. NAAC and NIFR just
cannot understand why senior posts cannot be filled up — but we know.
Nor
can the student community understand it and this frustration resulted in
shocking numbers of vacant seats this year. A large part of the mess was, of
course, due to bureaucratic handling by the authorities — and even the minister
had to put in a strong request. We must remember that iconic colleges and
universities the world over continue to excel more because of their students —
the creme da le creme — that they attract. Despite a hundred problems, it is
the energies that radiate when the sharpest brains of every generation
assemble, argue and compete in the classrooms and corridors of historic
colleges that keep the institutions so vibrant. The biggest fear is that such
students are coming in lesser numbers and even those who do find themselves
cribbed by an overwhelming ‘domination syndrome’ as hired guards keep saluting
the university officials and watch all — which is totally unprecedented.
Hopes
ran high when the Mentor Group was set up in 2011 and the press and public
followed with interest developments and high profile visits. This Group, which lost and gained professors as it went along,
submitted reports every six months but six and half years was much too long —
as authorities tend to lose their sense of urgency. Whatever improvement is
possible has been suggested quite sincerely in the six parts of the Mentor Group’s reports that run into 134 pages and has many more
pages in the Annexures. But implementation was not directly the Group’s
responsibility — this was the Vice Chancellor’s.. Here, two issues come to mind and the first is that except one
member, no other academic in the Group has ever blackened his or her hands with
real administration. This is a rather tricky and unpleasant job and good
intentions are not substitutes for efficient
execution. The second problem is that no University Act has any
provision or role for a Mentor Group and under the law, universities are
supervised by Executive Councils and Courts — by whatever names they are
called. The minutes of these meetings in Presidency indicate that the VC got
what she wanted — as unlike other universities, very few external members
attended.
The VC’s unilateral mode of deciding became public during the
Bicentenary Celebrations and numerous senior persons were hurt as the 200 year
institution was being converted into just one person’s ‘glory’ mission.
Presidency’s unique advantage is that it’s Alumni consists of countless VCs — all more senior and
experienced than the present incumbent — who were willing to help but were rudely
ignored. Its Alumni has hundreds of other worthies, like judges, authors,
intellectuals, journalists, advocates and administrators — who have a greater
stake in the institution than a temporary head. What shocked thousands of
alumni — to whom Presidency was not just a college but a veritable treasure of
lifelong memories — was the gross commercial tastes that dominated this
unilateral exercise of power. It was beyond anybody’s imagination that a single
individual could uproot the classic gate of the college, along with its
sentinel tree that had seen so much of Bengal’s history, just to erect a
larger, tasteless entrance. Other historic bits and nooks of a college like the
‘portico’ where generations of students learnt how to articulate their arguments
were treated with similar insensitivity and smashed by contractors, god knows
why. Instead of improving research, which both NAAC and NIRF insist before
reconsidering the university’s rank and score, the ancient marble and beautiful
old world cast-iron architecture of the iconic Baker Laboratory were ripped
off. Priceless furniture and historic laboratory equipment that could adorn a
museum, were sold off as scrap. Precious funds that could improve libraries and
laboratories and help keep them open till late, as is done in the best foreign
universities, were spent in paying contractors, but hostel students continue to
suffer.
Poor
Pramod da, whose canteen has been a part of the college heritage for several decades, was thrown out on flimsy grounds in a
purely Tughlaqian style. Did the university need a monstrous piece of ‘art’
that looks like a pincushion with bent pins? The slightest question about why
or how much it cost — how much public money was showered on which item and why
— is met with tantrums and scorn. Even the legally-prescribed RTI procedure is
not operationalised and the university does not post the names of the PIO and
the Appellate Authority on its website — unlike thousands of similar
institutions. This is illegal. All public queries are just blocked by stony
silence.
Though
every sentence has hurt, they had to be mentioned —only to save the university
from further damage. Never in the history of this 201-year old institution has
a Vice Chancellor’s house been raided by Income Tax officials — whatever be the
reason. But all is not lost, as a new good team leader can clear the present
mess, with more consideration and sincerity. Inefficiency can be cured, but it
is doubtful whether insensitiveness can.
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