Students protests at Jadavpur University a day after a first year student was found dead under mysterious circumstances at the hostel recently. File
| Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri
The death last Wednesday of a student of Jadavpur University (JU) due to alleged ragging has evoked a late but strong reaction now from the city of Kolkata, which is usually quick to take to the streets on issues it is angry about.
Most people, including those related to the prestigious university, are now blaming the authorities for not taking enough measures to prevent ragging and not taking swift action in this case either. Last Wednesday, Swapnadip Kundu, a first-year undergraduate student of Bengali, hailing from Nadia district, died after he fell from the balcony of his university hostel; he was allegedly being teased for being gay.
“Many of our students come from rural backgrounds who don’t easily connect to the class that takes to the streets. Maybe that is why you initially didn’t find much reaction. But the blame lies with the incompetence of the authorities,” said Imankalyan Lahiri, a well-known professor of Jadavpur University who has openly demanded the resignation of university registrar for allegedly attending a lunch invitation by availing sick leave at a time when such an episode has taken place.
Explaining why she thinks the city, which is usually quicker in reacting to events in Jawaharlal Nehru University, took time to wake up to the JU episode, Krishnakoli Ray, the headmistress of a Kolkata school, said: “Those staying in hostels come from the outskirts, and the city is yet to maybe accept them as one of their own, so the lukewarm response.”
She minced no words in her criticism of the university: “The death of the fresher brings to the fore the fact that despite what the authorities want us to believe, ragging is still rampant in the JU hostels. In fact, the hostel in question was notorious even when we were students. The first question one should ask is why are ex-students still allowed in the hostel premises and why should they have a say in allocating rooms to freshers? Freshers are not even supposed to stay in the same hostels as seniors if anti-ragging measures are to be followed. In this particular case, the role of the dean and the hostel super are also questionable.”
Dr. Saptarshi Basu of the Indian Institute of Science, an alumnus of mechanical engineering, batch of 1999, at JU, said: “Jadavpur hostel culture has always been a source of shame; ragging was always rampant. It was hard for many V-Cs to control the hostel for many years. This brutal practice which now may have claimed a life has to stop forever. This has to be dealt with an iron fist this time.”
On Wednesday evening, a group of former students of the university will sit in protest at its gate No. 4, demanding “Justice for the murder of Swapnadip”. Three people — two students and one former student — have been arrested so far.
“I am going to meet the V-C this afternoon along with a bunch of people. There is latent homophobia no doubt, and this is the case of blatant murder. We must put an end to ragging — it is as heinous as rape,” said interdisciplinary artist and activist Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee.