Is JU incident exposing friction within Left wing campus politics?

KOLKATA: A day after the return of MPhil student of

Jadavpur University

Sushil Mandi, who was accused of molesting a film studies department student, a fresh debate has gained momentum on the campus. Is JU turning witness to a dirty move that’s pitting gender against caste-based politics? At a time when all Left parties in other educational institutes in the country, including JNU, are uniting against saffronisation, is this incident only exposing the friction within JU’s Left wing campus politics?

While Mandi is a member of Left wing outfit Radical, four students named in the FIR by Mandi’s brother are members of Left wing student outfit called United Students’ Democratic Front. Left-minded documentary filmmaker

Soumitra Dastidar

, who knows Mandi well, wondered if the girl has been “trapped” within the jargons of patriarchy. “A long history of women’s movement for justice has helped in forming cells to address sexual harassment issues on campus. Instead of approaching this cell, the decision to get into social media shaming smacks of misuse of neo-liberal feminism,” he said.

Anindya Sengupta, assistant professor of the department of film studies, insists that this controversy is about “two factions using identity politics based on gender and caste as their last refuge”. “The girl individually is not playing the gender card. But I’m not very sure about her friends. The dalit card has been misused in a rather hasty way,” he said.

Caught in the middle are those like national award winning film editor Arghyakamal Mitra, whose son was named in FIR. “I don’t know who is playing which card. We have sent our children to study there and would want them to concentrate on academics,” Mitra said.

sMadhuja Mukherjee, an associate professor of the department, stands by the girl. “There is no reason to disbelieve her. She too lives in Kolkata by herself and is a spirited young woman. If Sushil wanted to apologize, we should have heard him out. We can’t punish a person without giving him a chance to speak. It is unfortunate that Left politics can’t address the woman’s question and dalit conditions. They seem to conflict each other. Women, who enjoy elite privileges, need to act more responsibly.”


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