West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar faced “go back” slogans and demonstrations from students of Calcutta University on Tuesday afternoon as he was on his way to attend the convocation ceremony.
The protesters demanded lifting of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which critics say discriminates against Muslims. The protesting students said that they won’t accept degrees from the Governor as he was a representative of the Centre. They refused to attend the convocation if Dhankhar was present.
The Governor was expected to convene the program and also hand out the degrees to students as he is the chancellor of all state universities by virtue of his position. He was also supposed to award the honorary DLitt degree to Abhijit Banerjee – the 2019 Nobel Laureate in Economics.
The Governor’s convoy was stopped ahead of Nazrul Manch – the venue for the convocation. He had to sit in his vehicle for a while before being taken inside the venue through another entrance.
However, after waiting for a long time, he had to leave the venue eventually as the students kept demanding that they won’t let the program continue if it was attended by him. The program started after the Vice-Chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee pacified the students by promising that she will hand out the degrees.
This is the second time that Dhankhar was boycotted by students of an educational institution in a convocation ceremony. Dhankhar was not allowed to attend the convocation of Jadavpur University on December 24 in a similar manner. His convoy was stopped ahead of the venue and the students there too refused to accept their degrees from him.
After leaving the venue, Dhankhar wrote a series of tweets: “Those who compromised culture and decorum need to be in reflective mode,” said one of them.
In another, he wrote, “Had some memorable moments with Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee and his mother after wearing the robe for Convocation. The actions of those who created or stage managed unseemly spectacle would resonate for long in the ears of cultured people of WB.” He also wrote, “VC sought permission from a Chancellor to proceed with the Convocation. In view of the enormous respect I have for Abhijit Bannerjee and mindful of the reputation of the iconic Calcutta University, I accorded the same.”
Comments are closed.