Kolkata: The Left’s dominance of student politics in universities might be on the wane but in Kolkata, it still rules the roost in two of the city’s most prestigious campuses — Presidency and Jadavpur universities.
Many of the students ThePrint spoke to in these traditionally Left-leaning campuses, continue to bat for the communist parties while reserving contempt for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
“Modi, when he came to power in 2014, promised two crore jobs every year. That has not been achieved till now,” said Kamalini Mukherjee, a first-year Economics student at Jadavpur University. “In all the meetings that he is holding everywhere around India that is one of the topics he is avoiding.”
Unemployment has reached an all-time high in the country, says Ahan Karmakar, a first-year economics student at Presidency University, adding that things are no better in West Bengal.
Data available with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) bears this out. In 2017-2018, of the total 89,682 students studying in AICTE-approved institutions in West Bengal, only 22,909 got placements.
Of the 3,769 students studying in engineering and technical institutions in the state, only 476 got placed in 2017-18. According to data at the Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy website, the unemployment rate in West Bengal as of March 2019 was 6.3 per cent.
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Need for a secular government
Another thread joining the students is their calls for a secular government, both at the state and the Centre.
“After seeing the Modi government at the Centre and the Mamata Banerjee government in the state, people are rooting for a secular democratic government,” said Subhojit, a history student at Presidency College. “Both of them are playing the religion card to the hilt. The Left, in its 34 years of rule, never played identity politics. The state never witnessed such polarisation like now.”
Samantak Das, a professor of comparative literature, Jadavpur University, says the BJP understands the theatre of politics very well.
“In Bengal, the rise of BJP has coincided with the Trinamool Congress’ appeasement of the minorities,” Das said. “This has given rise to tremendous communal feeling and has polarised the voters.”
Balakot air strike a political gimmick
A majority of the students also said they see the 26 February airstrike on terror launchpads in Pakistan’s Balakot as a “political gimmick”.
“BJP has always used a nationalist sentiment for their self-interest. What was the hurry to carry out the attack just before the elections?” asked Pramit Sarkar, a third-year student of Bengali literature at Jadavpur University. “It’s just a muscle-flexing exercise.”
Asif Abdullah, a first-year political science student of Presidency University says that the Modi government could not save CRPF personnel from the terror attack in Pulwama and then went ahead with the air strikes.
“BJP is just trying to create a hyper-nationalism kind of a situation through such actions,” he said.
Mamata Banerjee won’t make for a good PM, say students
Asked what they think of Mamata as a PM candidate, the students said that it will be a bad idea. They said she is not the right choice for PM as in the eight years that she has been in power in the state all she has done is create a divide by playing communal politics.
“She has not been very successful in managing the state, how will she be able to manage the country?” says Aneesha Kundu, a second-year Bengali literature student at Presidency College.
Subrodhal Ghosh, a first-year history student at Jadavpur University said if Mamata does get to become the PM, the first fallout will be for her party in the state. “The TMC government will collapse here,” he said.
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When Congress was in power every one questioned them for intelligence failure and BJP went on to say it was conpiracy. Now no one is dare to ask why terrorist attacks was not prevented the Pulwama was real failure. Conpiracy or otherwise is different.
It’s so bizarre to say that what was the hurry to counter Pak in Balakot airstrikes just before the elections . Will the Govt wait for the elections to conclude if some unfortunate incident happens ? Pak needed a swift muscular action to warn Pak of it’s misadventures . Mamta’s farcical rule is going to be dissipated but the left is still irrelevant and obsolete and presently there’s no other option but to go for Modi govt .
Silly article. Randomly asking some left leaning students in the two politically vitiated education institutes as generalised opinion of students! What about those who had different viewpoint? What about students of non- politically charged college campuses like Xavier’s and Brabourne and Scottish Church , Loreto , Bethune etc ?
The problems with most Bengalis is that they can only talk! Most Bengalis give get involved in animated intellectual discussions on any topic but when it comes to action, there are a BIG ZERO. No wonder there state is in such mess. No Industry wants to establish anything in Bengal because there is no work ethic there, only endless intellectual discussions and debates