Jadavpur university (JU) has been on the boil since the West Bengal state education minister Bratya Basu ran his car over students on 1st March, grievously injuring one. For the past few years, there have been continuous delays in announcing student union elections in JU. The last election was held in 2020 when ABVP was thwarted successfully in Jadavpur and left student organisations held sway. After that, for more than half a decade now, there have been no student elections conducted inside JU. Naturally, there has been a long-standing demand from students to conduct elections. At a meeting organised to hold a dialogue between the administration and the students, the education minister, out of sheer arrogance, left the meeting without paying heed to student demands. As students tried to stop his moving car, without showing even a shred of humanity, he ran the car over the human barricade. In this commotion, one student named Indranuj suffered serious leg and eye injuries with his head being spared the crushing wheels by inches. No other incident in the recent past has brought out the megalomania of the ruling party as this.
The gravity of the incident exposes the apathy displayed by the ruling dispensation towards JU students.
JU is one of the few places that stand strong against the rising reaction in society particularly against the autocratic TMC in Bengal. Despite many efforts, ABVP or Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (student wing of TMC) have not been able to gain ground in JU.
Rather than bowing to the student demands, the West Bengal state government unleashed all its fury on the students of JU. There have been FIRs on students accusing them of attacking the education minister. Students have been picked up by the police and false cases lodged against them. Right-wing media houses and the BJP in Bengal have added to the vilification of JU students. The pattern followed is reminiscent of the kind of treatment JNU or JMI students are subjected to regularly. Despite BJP being the prime opposition in Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government has taken a leaf out of Delhi police’s playbook. The public campaign branding JU students as extremists has reached such a fever pitch that an FIR has been registered by students citing the hateful content aired by Republic Bengal. Despite all the state repression, the students are standing strong continuing their fight for their rightful demands.
