3 days ago
How campus violence has marred ‘Oxford of the East' Patna University
For the last few days, the 19-year-old student of Patna's BN College has been both scared and furious. It's been two weeks since two crude bombs hurled on the campus killed a fellow student and sparked massive protests, and the student is now worried about his own safety.
'Studying at Patna University was once a dream of many. Now, it's a nightmare,' the student says.
The incident that has shaken the 19-year-old and many of his fellow students occurred on May 13, fatally wounding Sujeet Kumar Pandey, a second-year history honours student. According to the police, the bombs, hurled at 12:45 pm, was a result of a student rivalry and led to the detention of two people.
The bombing has once again brought into focus the turbulent – and often violent – nature of Patna University's student politics. Once referred to as 'Oxford of the East', Patna University has seen at least five incidents of campus violence in the last two years – three of these in the last three months alone.
'Good, genuine students still avoid the hostels and find accommodation outside campuses due to this atmosphere,' one police officer says. 'Every now and then, we find sticks, rods, hockey sticks, and even firearms and materials for making crude bombs during raids at the college hostels.'
The incidents led Bihar Governor Arif Mohammed Khan — the Chancellor of Patna University – to make scathing remarks on the need for discipline on campus. In a speech made during a visit to the campus, Khan made particular mention of 'outsiders illegally occupying hostel rooms' as a key factor in the university's 'antisocial' environment.
Both students and professors The Indian Express spoke to appear to endorse this. 'Various political parties have been misusing university students – some of whom no longer study here – as pawns for their own political gains, even using them for criminal purposes. There's a nexus involving these antisocial elements and political leaders,' N.K. Chaudhary, a retired professor and a former principal of Patna College, tells The Indian Express.
Calls and text messages to Patna University Vice-Chancellor Ajay Kumar Singh, Registrar Shalini and Dean of Student Welfare Anil Kumar went unanswered.
'Antisocial elements'
Founded in 1917, Patna University is India's seventh oldest and Bihar's first university that counts several of Bihar's most prominent leaders – from chief ministers such as S.K. Sinha, Lalu Prasad Yadav and the incumbent Nitish Kumar to diplomats such as former foreign secretary Muchkund Dubey and former Chief Justice of India Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha — among its alumni.
Since the first student election at the university in 1959, the Patna University's student body, the Patna University Student Union (PUSU), has been known as a vibrant forum for debate. But it was the 1970s – right around the time of the Bihar movement, also known as the JP Movement – that marked its true coming of age.
Led by the veteran Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, the student movement in 1974 was aimed at protesting corruption and misrule in the state of Bihar, although it eventually spread to the central government under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as well.
At Patna University, where the protests first began, Lalu Prasad Yadav, then president of the PUSU, was one of those driving the movement, along with Sushil Modi, who would later become deputy chief minister of Bihar, and Ravi Shankar Prasad, who would eventually go on to become a Union minister.
'Politics has always been at the core of Patna University,' a college professor tells The Indian Express.
But by the 1980s, the general mood of the campus had changed, with escalating caste conflicts and student clashes prompting the university's authorities from banning PUSU elections. This ban was lifted only in 2012, when the All India Students' Federation (AISF), the students' wing of the Communist Party of India won two of five key posts in the student body.
The absence of elections, however, didn't stop political tensions from rising in the university — according to former professors and officials, caste lines began to be drawn here, allowing 'criminal elements to entrench themselves on campus and use college hostels for antisocial activities'.
'During that time, many non-students and antisocial elements backed by politicians made university hostels their safe houses,' one former professor claims.
These problems persisted even after student elections resumed in 2012 – according to students and former professors, political patronage began to turn the PUSU elections into proxy battles for political parties, who viewed the campus as a training ground for future leaders. This eventually took the form of student clashes, violence and even bombings.
For instance, in 2013, a mob of students barged into the Dalit Bhimrao Ambedkar Welfare Hostel armed with hockey sticks, bricks, stones, firearms and crude bombs, and assaulted residents. Three Dalits were injured in these clashes.
These tensions came to a head in May last year, when a 22-year-old student of BN College was beaten to death at the Patna Law College. The incident, allegedly over the student union election, led to then Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar ordering the closure of all university hostels.
This year too has seen at least three instances of campus bombings – including the incident on May 13. On March 5, days before the Patna University Students' Union (PUSU) elections, a bomb that went off near the university's Darbhanga House allegedly damaged a professor's car.
Then on April 26 – just after the university announced it was reopening its hostels to students – four crude bombs exploded near Cavendish and Minto hostels after a clash between students. Police detained 13 students over this incident and allegedly found bomb-making materials in a room in Minto.
Violence marred this year's PUSU polls too, leaving a journalist and a student wounded.
According to students and professors, political parties 'openly' support student groups in defiance of the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines, which recommends against external interference in student body elections. The guidelines, submitted by a panel under former Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh in 2006, state that no person who is not a student on the rolls of the college or university 'shall be permitted to take part in the election process in any capacity'.
Caste equations – always a permanent fixture in Bihar's social fabric – further fuel these student rivalries, which take the shape of hostel turf wars, as authorities struggle to enforce rules out of fear of retaliation from 'antisocial elements and politically connected groups', students and former professors allege.
'Different hostels are dominated by specific caste groups, and if a student is assigned a room in a hostel that does not align with their caste, they are often not permitted to stay,' Hritik Raushan, one of the presidential candidates for this year's PUSU elections, says, adding that these hostels have been left 'orphaned by the PU administration'.
Former IPS officer Shivdeep Wamanrao Lande, who has previously served as Patna city's superintendent of Police, says hostel administrators 'are often too afraid to confront or to deal with these groups'.
'When I first joined, there were reports of clashes among boarders… Use of crude bombs was frequent even in the past at Patna University. Some hostel residents had as many as 20-25 criminal cases against them,' he says.
For students, all of this means fear of returning to the campus. 'We have to think twice before seeking admissions here),' one student at BN College says, while another adds that he has chosen not to live on campus because 'it's unsafe'.
