One of the major promises made by Trinamool Congress (TMC) party leader Mamata Banerjee in the historic legislative assembly election of 2011 in which TMC routed the Communist Party of India (CPM)-led Left Front government which ruled West Bengal (pop.91 million) for 34 years (1977-2011) continuously, was to relax political control over the state’s education institutions.

During its prolonged rule, the CPM had given a free hand to its faux intellectuals, youth wing and apparatchiks to massively infiltrate and run amok in the state’s 25 universities and 374 colleges. In the process, West Bengal’s higher education institutions, which right up to the 1970s were renowned for scholarship and research and acknowledged among the best countrywide, were run into the ground.

Five years down the line, very little seems to have changed, and most academics in the state are unanimous that the TMC government is following in the footsteps of the ousted Left Front. On December 16, education minister Partha Chatterjee tabled the West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Administration and Regulation) Bill, 2016, which empowers the state government to further interfere in the internal affairs of government promoted and/or funded colleges and universities. 

One of the control-and-command provisions of the Bill is that an “eminent academic” nominated by the state government will be the president of the governing council of every college. The justification for this provision is that there’s a stipulation that presidents must have minimum education qualifications. Arabul Islam, a former TMC MLA who had never been beyond class X, had officiated as president of the governing body of Bhangar Mahavidyalaya, South 24 Parganas district, for four years (2011-15). But while the academic community has welcomed the provision that the president of a college governing body should be an eminent academic, the qualification that she will be selected by the government hasn’t gone down well with the academy amid fears of government micromanagement. 

The new Bill also introduces biometric attendance of teachers and non-teaching employees of colleges which is vigorously opposed by professors and academics of several universities including Jadavpur and Calcutta, who argue that “factory-like timing” for faculty will hurt research. 

Unsurprisingly these provisions of the Bill which vest more powers in the state government to select the heads of colleges and faculty recruitment committees, have aroused the wrath of the faculty and students of colleges and universities. The Left-leaning Jadavpur University Teachers Association and Calcutta University Teachers Association are livid and gearing up for mass protests. Several other teachers’ organisations have also attacked the Bill as a “blatant attack on academic autonomy”. 

Following severe and sustained public protests, education minister Partha Chatterjee has temporarily withdrawn the Bill. “There are certain words in the Bill that even I don’t agree with. Since opposition as well as TMC legislators want some changes in the Bill — 2,526 amendments have been proposed — I have deferred the Bill and will bring it before the House at an appropriate time,” said Chatterjee, who nevertheless insisted that its major provisions won’t be changed.

Academics opposed to the “draconian” provisions of the Bill, derive some comfort from Chatterjee’s patchy success record in pushing revolutionary legislation through the legislature. Immediately after taking charge as education minister in June 2014, Chatterjee revoked his predecessor’s proposal of online admissions to colleges and varsities. Later in 2015, he proposed that the chancellor (i.e, governor) should appoint the vice chancellor of all universities on the recommendation of the education minister — a proposal which was discarded amidst mass protests. Now with the opposition and academia uniting to stall the new Bill, the likelihood of it being introduced in its present form seems remote.

Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)