‘Vengeful’: Academics need VBU professor’s suspension revoked

More than 500 teachers have condemned Visva-Bharati University’s (VBU) determination to droop economics professor Sudipta Bhattacharyya, and urged the establishment to revoke the suspension.
Bhattacharya was suspended on January 7 for alleging irregularities within the appointment of the principal of Patha Bhavana, one of many college’s establishments.
The economics professor is the president of the Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association and just lately discovered himself in the course of an issue involving the college’s vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. On December 9, Chakraborty reportedly claimed at a gathering with over 350 college members that the famend economist had launched himself as “Bharat Ratna Amartya Sen” in a cellphone name and urged him to not evict hawkers round his home. After Bhattacharrya sought clarification from Sen, the Nobel laureate dismissed the V-C’s claims.
In the letter defending Bhattacharyya, the teachers wrote, “Such an action also smacks of vengeful action from the university authorities particularly since Prof. Bhattacharyya, as an office-bearer of the faculty association, has been consistently raising questions about several irregularities in the university.”

Among the signatories are Delhi University affiliate professor Abha Dev Habib, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor emerita Zoya Hasan, Kyoto University affiliate professor Rohan D’Souza, JNU professor emeritus Prabhat Patnaik.
The teachers accused the VBU Executive Council of taking an arbitrary determination on flimsy grounds. They added, “This seems to be the latest example of how universities are increasingly being run in an authoritarian manner in this country. Universities as critical spaces of academic inquiry need to preserve the freedom of raising questions. Any curbing of these basic rights and freedoms amounts to dismantling the foundational principles of a university. It is indeed of great irony that a university inspired by the life and work of an internationally acclaimed poet like Rabindranath Tagore has chosen to revoke the right to ask questions.”