A day after West Bengal Governor and Chancellor Jagdeep Dhankar was gheraoed by a section of students at the Calcutta University convocation on Tuesday, he said he was shaken by what had happened.
”As Chancellor, I am in pain, I am shaken up. There is no identity built over centuries. It is discrimination on values and traditions in essence, it is a dark period” the Governor said.
He was speaking to the media about the anti Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizenship (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) and the student protests at the Calcutta University convocation.
The protests are part of the nation wide agitations against the Central BJP led Government’s newly amended citizenship law.
On Tuesday the Governor was gheraoed when his car was entering the Nazrul Manch auditorium premises,where the convocation was held.
The Governor was to confer Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee with a Honorary D.Litt (Honoris Coursa) but had to leave the auditorium soon after he entered with difficulty. The Nobel Laureate was conferred the Honorary D.Litt without the presence of the Governor. This was the first time a Chancellor was not present at the university’s convocation ceremony.
“There were many reasons why the great moment was allowed to eclipse. The domain of teaching cannot be compromised in anyway. The incident cannot be forgotten. It is a question of how the State is going to run, can students in future be at the mercy of the protesting students?” the Governor added.
He also said he had had no hint about what was going to happen at the venue and that there was no information given to his office.
At the time of the protests on Tuesday,West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee along with artists were painting a canvas depicting anti-CAA,NRC and NPR images. Mamata plans to take these images to different towns and cities to amplify the anti-CAA protests.
The Governor and Mamata have had differences of opinions on various issues, including the CAA-NRC-NPR.
