Members of a students’ union raised ruckus at Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee University (DSPMU) on Wednesday demanding inclusion of student’s representatives in the varsity’s maiden senate meeting, wherein the Adivasi Chatra Sangh (ACS) wanted to float the idea of rechristening the university after a Jharkhand personality.
The ACS holds four of five berths in the students’ council of the DSPMU, and renaming the university after a local hero has been a long-pending demand of the ACS. On Wednesday, some members of the student body gheraoed the office of the vice chancellor Satyanarayan Munda and allegedly manhandled him.
“How can you hold the senate meeting without including any member of the student’s council?” asked Sanjay Mahli, president of ACS, adding that his students’ union wanted to make the senate members aware of the growing demand of renaming the university among students.
However, officials from the university said that the tenure of the students’ council has ended, and they did not have the right to participate in the meeting. “Around six student representatives attended the senate meeting today (Wednesday). Various issues related to the holistic development of the university were discussed,” said an official not entitled to talk to the media.
The senate meeting was delayed by over two hours following the ruckus by students. Talking about the achievements of the university, the vice chancellor said that the university has the best of teachers and students from neighbouring states like West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha also study in it. He said that the university was consistently striving to include new courses and add more facilities for the students.
Governor Droupadi Murmu, joined senate members via video conferencing. With focus on improving the quality of teachers, she said that teachers not only imparted bookish knowledge to students, but were also responsible for molding them into responsible citizens of the country.
“The mode of education may have changed due to Covid-19 with inclusion of technology, but the basis of education remains the same – even today, only teachers guide the society to follow the right path,” said Murmu.
Around 20 agenda, mostly related to new courses, teachers’ recruitment, promotion of teachers, renovation of university building and improvement of the library were discussed, sources present in the meeting said.
In April 2017, a former BJP-ruled government approved the idea of renaming Ranchi College after Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, a barrister, a politician and a former vice chancellor of Calcutta University, which marked the beginning of a political war between student bodies here. Several protest marches and signature campaigns by student unions followed soon after the recommendation was made.