What happens when mentor becomes greedy?


Before 2011 assembly Election, the present ruling party declared, as a policy, that they would make Educational Institutions free of politics. They diagnosed that the basic cause of deteriorating standard of education in the then Bengal with respect to other states had been the involvement of politicians in education system. They identified the democratic process of constituting different bodies as a main culprit like a hole in the Lakhindor’s Basar Ghar. As a result, soon after assuming the power of the state they amended all provisions in university Acts pertaining to democratic representation of different sections of the university in different bodies and discovered a unique idea of representation in alphabetical order and reverse alphabetical order of Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors. However, they were in so hurry to get rid of politics that initially they omitted in making provision of representation of any Professor in the EC in that amended Acts and surprisingly included few Faculty Councils which do not exist in reality. People surely would forgive them as it only suggests the priority they had given to this noble cause of politicization of Academic institutions. Many people do not know that the Faculty Council, the most important academic body of a university, remains non-functional since the present ruling party had come into the power for the possible reason that though Act has been amended, university authority did not get time to amend relevant Statutes, Ordinances and Rules.


Anyway, these are not very relevant issues now. Relevant thing to be mentioned here is that Prof. Sugata Basu is one of the important members of the Advisory Committee on Higher Education of the present Govt as well as Mentor of Presidency College (now university). He was the man who was most ardent in advocating cleansing operation of all shades of politics from r academic institutions of higher learning. Now he has been nominated by the ruling party as their candidate in coming parliament election. Naturally IC representatives of Presidency University demanded his resignation from the post of mentor. Not surprisingly, as reported in the media, he declined to do so. We are not surprised because, in the first place, we all know that he is not a Nadan and, most importantly, being a Pundit in ancient history he knows better than anyone else the inner meaning of the proverb of Ahiqar - 'a sparrow in thy hand is better than a thousand sparrows flying'

2 comments:

  1. Right observation, indeed! The little we speak about these 'unprincipled' intellectuals that would save us from disgrace.
    Bikash Deb

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