Rajarshi Sengupta : When I joined JU in the Dept of Computer Science in 1984 our freshers orientation was held in the Gandhi Bhaban. Dr Som, I think the first name was Pijush, was the Dean of Engineering and remembered with great respect and sorrow the late Gopal Sen, the VC murdered on campus on the last day of his office. I still remember what he said about Gopal Sen - quoting Shakespeare in Othello he said that perhaps Dr Sen had loved his students not wisely but too well. That stuck in my mind as did the enormous respect and devotion that a current Dean was showing his ex VC. There was another person who spoke highly of Gopal Sen - my late father. As the District Magistrate of undivided 24 Parganas he had to work with Gopal Sen on the student unrest rampant at that time and had developed enormous respect for the VC and how much he cared for the students. To the extent, and if I remember this right, even when stabbed he did not identify the student who did it, who, rumour has it, went on to have a long stint at JU as a professor. So here was a VC who literally died for his students. Thus when the current Minister of Education refers to the late Gopal Sen in saying that JU has a precedence of VCs being killed and therefore by analogy compares the late Gopal Sen to the spineless current incumbent who asked rhetorically if the police were expected to worship the students, you feel a deep retching bile rise within you. Bile at the sheer lack of perspective by the Minister. Bile at the blasphemy of comparing one of the most revered VC s of JU with a person whose name will go down in infamy as a violator of all trusts that an educational institution places in its head. Bile at how low our institiutes have fallen and what quality of people we deal with. And a rage emerges, tinged with sadness, at how cheaply we desecrate memories to protect the dregs of humanity masquerading as teachers. Damn them and let the strongest damnation be for this interim VC who should not besmirch any other educational post. Courtesy : Ayan Banerji. #hokkolorob.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 19:17:50 +0000