Biggest thieves at Gandhiji’s b’day at Rajghat: Visva-Bharati VC

Kolkata, Feb 21 (IANS) In a series of controversial outbursts, Visva-Bharati University Vic -Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty on Friday likened the institution with a “goose that lays golden eggs” but said it was sick and in ventilation due to a precarious financial position.

He also remarked that the “biggest thieves” gather at Rajghat on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday wearing “Gandhi topis”.

“You cannot enter Rajghat (the spot in Delhi where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated) on October 2, Gandhi’s birthday. The biggest thieves of the country, wearing topis, gather there on that day and through the year they do exactly what Gandhi was against,” he said while addressing a gathering in the campus on the occasion of the International Mother Tongue Day.

He said the varsity was sick, and living on ventilation support. “We, who are running the administration, only know the precarious financial position.”

The Vice Chancellor said the university has become a place for increased employment.

“Professors, businessmen and the media, all eke out a living out of it… If Visva-Bharati closes down – many journalists will see a fall in income and we will die of starvation.

“Visva-Bharati is that goose that lays golden eggs,” he said.

The Rabindranath Tagore founded university has seen repeated flare-ups in recent times.

On January 8, Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta, on a visit to the varsity to deliver a lecture on the new citizenship law, was confined by CPI-M-affiliated Students Federation of India activists for close to six hours inside a locked room of the varsity here, about 160 kilometers from Kolkata.

Dasgupta, Vice Chancellor, and other varsity officials were released from the Social Work department at Sreeniketan, a little distance away from the main campus at Santiniketan late into the night by the protesting students.

On January 15, two students having allegiance to the Left unions at the varsity were allegedly beaten up with broken wickets, wooden rods and sticks in the hostel.