At a Kolkata college, a Muslim vice-principal was forced to resign. Then, RSS' student wing 'purified' her office
Mohammadi Tarannum has taught for 25 years, and has been vice-principal and teacher-in-charge of Surendranath College in Kolkata since September 2007. On September 11, she signed a letter of resignation, after having been gheraoed in her own office by students for roughly 23 hours. She says the students drafted the letter for her and forced her to sign it.
After she left under police protection, a section of students led by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, went into her chamber, lit incense sticks and sprinkled Ganga water. They said they were purifying it. Then they put up posters demanding the resignation she had already been made to sign.
“I heard so much abuse, so many obscene remarks involving caste, religion and politics from students that I fell ill for two days,” Tarannum told The Wire. “They abused me, mocked me and made all sorts of offensive remarks. Even after being subjected to such extreme mental torture, I have decided that I will not resign unless they kill me.”
Rajat Agar, a fourth-year student who was a part of the agitation denied the allegation. “What the vice-principal has been claiming is false. She was not pressured,” he said.
The college, founded in 1884 and named for Indian National Congress leader Surendranath Banerjee, counts Rajendra Prasad and Khaleda Zia among its alumni. Its governing body is now headed by a sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MLA.
What led to the situation?
The dispute is about attendance. Law students must have 65% to sit their semester examinations. A section of them did not have it. The eighth-semester exams are on September 29. Tarannum told her students that the attendance rule would be applied.
“One group is preventing students from attending classes and, at the same time, making all kinds of demands. I am a government employee and I am working according to government rules,” Tarannum said.
A purification ritual indicates that a person made a particular space unfit to be in. Article 17 abolishes untouchability in any form and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 makes enforcing a disability arising from it an offence, but neither applies here. Both are framed around caste. Tarannum is, however, a Muslim woman and a natural target of the rapidly gaining college presence of student groups associated with the BJP and other Hindutva bodies.
The ABVP has no officially declared unit at Surendranath College. Yet, it is the only organisation which has a flag fluttering inside it. Its college leader, Sambit Das, told The Wire, “We do not want to see her face. We want her resignation. We remain firm on that demand.”
Tarannum said that she knew who was behind this planned attack. “But I will not name anyone. I will not even lodge a complaint with the police. They are like my own children,” she said.
Tarannum emailed the government from her car as soon as she was released, to say she had signed the letter under pressure. On September 12, she repudiated the letter publicly.
However, the authority receiving it has not clarified its stand. The governing body, whose president is the BJP MLA Kaustav Bagchi, has not said the letter is void. Nor has the Higher Education Department, to which Bagchi says he has forwarded students’ complaints against her. Almost a week since, it is not officially established whether this college has a vice-principal or not.
“Efforts are being made to ensure that all students can sit for the examination. Students have submitted a series of complaints against that professor,” Bagchi claimed. “I have forwarded those matters to the Higher Education Department. I hope a healthy environment will now return.”
Surendranath runs a day college and an evening college out of the same building. According to students, every room in the college is de facto in control by the politically powerful evening section. The law department, with 916 students on its rolls, has no office of its own.
Anurag Roy, a second-year student, told The Wire, “Classes are not held in college because teachers do not come. Students who travel from far away come here only to have to return without attending any class. Naturally, the tendency to attend college is declining.”
Nilay Kumar Saha, secretary of the West Bengal College and University Teachers’ Association, said the overall situation is worrying. “In the post-Covid period, there has been a growing tendency across colleges for students to take up other work to earn money after admission instead of attending classes. At the same time, the previous government did not intervene at all over this absenteeism,” Saha said.
Teachers have been running classes on Sundays now so that students can reach the 65% attendance mark before September 29. Incredibly, Tarannum has been arranging these classes with the Calcutta University. “I do not want them to suffer,” she says.
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