December 7, 2023
Saugata Roy’s speech in the Lok Sabha on The Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2023
Sir, I rise to support the Central Universities (Amendment) Bill which envisages setting up of a tribal university in Telangana possibly in Warangal which is a district town of Telangana. The Minister must be lamenting why this Bill was not passed earlier. If it was done before Telangana elections, maybe his party would have got a few more seats. But that is neither here nor there. Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan, as the HRD Minister, is in control of the best institutes of India like IIT, IIM, and IISER. They are all under him. So, here is really an opportunity of improving the quality of higher education in India. It is a matter of some wonder that in spite of all the money allotted, none of the Indian Institutes are among the top 200 institutions in the world. What can we do to improve the academic standards and make them comparable to the universities in England, America, France and even Singapore, leave alone China? That is the main question. Anyway, he has proposed this university for tribals. He is eminently suitable because he was a student of anthropology, and the study of tribals is done in anthropology. There is social anthropology, political anthropology which should be studied. Mr. Mahtab gave me one idea. As has been mentioned by Kumari Agatha K. Sangma, in the North-Eastern Hill University, local languages like Khasi and Garo are taught. So, in this Tribal University, I hope, the tribal languages like Santali and Mundari will be taught. My idea is, since you are spending so much money, let the university be set up at one place but it can have campuses in several tribal dominated areas. For example, in Bengal, we have two tribal dominated areas – Jhargram and Dooars. If we set up some campuses outside, this will also give a boost to tribal education. But may I mention that in spite of striving for excellence in central universities, the situation is still bad. The cases of suicides are taking place among students in these higher education institutes. Students are dropping out of their courses. Sir, we have a University called the University of Hyderabad in the State of Telangana. We all know about the suicide case of Rohith Vemula. It rattled the whole country how a Scheduled Caste boy felt so frustrated in a Central University that he had to commit suicide. It created a lot of dispute in the whole country. Mr. Minister is from Odisha. In Odisha, one Central University was set up in Koraput which is totally a tribal dominated district. But it has no faculty at all. I know a lady who used to be the Vice Chancellor and never went to Koraput. She used to commute from Kolkata to Bhubaneswar and back. I will request the hon. Minister to give attention to this University in tribal dominated area in his own home State. Whatever it is, let him have a good Vice Chancellor. There is nothing to prevent it. He has got all the power. The other thing is, there are 36 Central Universities but I often hear a complaint that the scholarships given to the students are not sufficient. Some students from Puducherry approached me. There is a Central University there. They said that they ask their parents to send money to them so that they can continue their research. If you want to improve the quality of research, then you have to increase the scholarship amount. Further, I would say that it is a good idea as I said, but the Minister has the chance. Now he is also a very important man in his own Party. He has got a decent clout. Let him put his clout to good use for the improvement of the central institutions. Some of the central universities are very good like the Delhi University and the JNU. They are very good. They are high standard universities. Even the Hyderabad University is also very good. But some universities are not up to the mark. Lastly, I will ask him one thing. There is a single central university in West Bengal. In 1857, that was the first university in Calcutta. But VisvaBharati is in shambles. The last Vice-Chancellor, who claimed to be close to the BJP, has destroyed it. Now he had even set up a flex board depicting Visva-Bharati being given a heritage status by the UNESCO. Only the names of the Vice-Chancellor and the Prime Minister were there. The name of Rabindranath Tagore was not there. Now that has been removed by the local people. But why did Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan not remove it? Why did they allow the Vice-Chancellor to run riot? Will there be an inquiry held against the previous Chancellor over his acts of omission and commission? As I said, I support this Bill. The tribal people deserve even more. We have not been able to give them enough, at least, educationally. If we can improve their condition, if we can keep the tribal students in the campuses, prevent their suicides, and give them more scholarships, then it would be a good thing. In this regard, I remember the contribution made by Mr. Bibhu Prasad Das who did a study of the tribes in the North-East. He suggested setting up of universities for the tribals. You can go into the archives and look into his recommendations. Due to his recommendations, the NorthEastern Hill University (NEHU) was formed just as the Rabindranath Tagore’s Institute was converted into a Visva-Bharati Central University with Jawaharlal Nehru’s intervention. With these words, I again support the Bill which is a forward step towards uplifting the cause of the tribals in this country. Thank you, Sir
