Ounce of hope for Presidency Student movement

By Swati Gilotra and Arnab Mitra

Kolkata: Surfing on the tides of criticism from nooks and corners of the society and struggling with the question about the nature of the students' protest are the bottlenecks which the Presidency University has been grappling with these days. However, the silver lining in the pitch-black clouds is seemingly visible for the group of rejectionists now. On Monday, they organised a cultural convention to invite and also gain the support of erudite panelists such as lawyer Arunavo Ghosh, former Naxal leader Ashim Chatterjee, activist Miratun Nahar and professor Deboprasad Bandhopadhyay. They applauded the students for their weak long mutiny/demonstration in the university.

Lawyer Arunavo Ghosh slams VC's act and asserted, "The VC is acting as the government's servant. I hardly remember that in our time any VC acted in this manner. The education system of West Bengal is totally destroyed which is leading to the brain drain".

Naxal leader Ashim Chatterjee took the conversation one step further, comparing their student movement of 1960 to the present day scenario. He said, "At our time, we painted the wall, projecting our anger with abusive slogans against the authority concerned. I am in full support with the students and I think they have not committed any mistake on this front."

The other panellists Dr Miratun Nahar and Professor Deboprasad Bandopadhyay raised their voice in support of the student movement, but contradictory to it; throughout the one hour convention, they did not waste a single word telling students to go back to the class and not to hamper their career.