Whatever may be the outcome in West Bengal of the General Elections that will kick off in a matter of days, the Left-leaning groups in Visva-Bharati — the only Central university in the State — are feeling victorious because noted economist Prabhat Patnaik is set to deliver a lecture at the campus on April 10.
Prof. Patnaik, who has taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and is a Marxist, will deliver the second Ashok Rudra Memorial Lecture at the university, organised by its Department of Economics and Politics, and will speak on ‘Employment and Poverty Under Neo-Liberal Capitalism’. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen will attend the lecture online.
Those aligned to the Left at the institution are feeling victorious because Prof. Patnaik was to deliver the same lecture back in early 2020, but the then Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Bidyut Chakrabarty, had allegedly conveyed to the department to “withhold” the event. Then the COVID-19 pandemic intervened and the lecture, instituted in 2019, could not be held. The inaugural lecture was delivered by Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Economics at the University of Berkeley.
“The same lecture by Professor Patnaik was initially scheduled in February 2020, well before the onset of COVID. However, the Vice-Chancellor’s office made a phone call to the Economics Department, instructing them not to proceed with the lecture, without providing any specific reason. This action was deeply disrespectful to the department,” Sudipta Bhattacharyya, Professor, Department of Economics and Politics, and a key member of the Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association, said.
“Despite their suggestions to invite an alternative speaker, we remained committed to hosting Prof. Patnaik and have patiently awaited the opportunity over the past four years. We are pleased to announce that the lecture will now take place on April 10, with Professor Amartya Sen as the Chief Guest. The interim Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sanjoy Mallik, has approved the upcoming lecture and is expected to attend,” Prof. Bhattacharyya said.
