Sanjay Kumar Mallik, Principal of Kala Bhawan, on Wednesday took charge as the Officiating Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, after the end of the term of Bidyut Chakrabarty.
A professor of History of Art, Prof. Mallik holds a PhD from M.S. University, Baroda and is considered as an expert in Indian Art. He is also the senior-most teacher at the university and was appointed Officiating V-C as per the University Act.
The change of guard at the institution set up by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore comes at a time when the university has been embroiled in a controversy over putting up of plaques to mark the UNESCO’s heritage status to Santiniketan. The marble plaques had mentioned the name of the Vice-Chancellor and the Prime Minister, who is the Chancellor of the university, but had no mention of Tagore who set up this institution of learning. In September, the town of Santiniketan, which was founded by members of the Tagore family, with Rabindranath himself setting up Visva-Bharati there over a 100 years ago, was included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
The term of Professor Chakrabarty, who took charge as the Vice-Chancellor of the Central university in 2018, was embroiled in several controversies, including the row with Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen as the university administration went to great lengths to take possession of a part of land on which Prof. Sen’s ancestral house had been built. A section of faculty members were on a collision course with the administration, often challenging administrative actions by Prof. Chakrabarty before the courts. The developments at the institution over the past five years had often taken a political turn with the State government led by Mamata Banerjee being at loggerheads with the university administration.