Relief and apprehension: this is how many teachers described the current mood in Visva-Bharati University following the end of the tenure of Prof. Bidyut Chakrabarty as Vice-Chancellor, a five-year period that saw a large number of suspensions and terminations in the Rabindranath Tagore-founded university.
“Relief, because he is gone; apprehension because we don’t know who and how the next V-C is going to be,” a senior teacher, one of those who did not openly take sides during Prof. Chakrabarty’s tenure, told The Hindu. At present, the institution has an officiating V-C in arts teacher Sanjoy Kumar Mallik, and a full-time appointment could take up to six months.
Prof. Chakrabarty, shortly after he took charge in November 2018, issued a gag order, prohibiting employees — except the Public Relations Officer (PRO) — from speaking to the media. Thereafter, it almost became routine for transfer, suspension and termination orders as well as show-cause notices to be served on employees. Many of these were challenged legally and nearly 200 cases are said to be pending in various courts.
