Visva Bharati professor sacking | Chomsky, other academics write to President

The convocation ceremony and the annual Poush Mela (a fair held in the Bengali month of Poush) have been called off by the Visva Bharati university in the wake of the unrest

Over 250 academics, including well-known linguist Noam Chomsky, have written to President Draupadi Murmu, informing her about the service termination of Visva Bharati professor Sudipta Bhattacharya over "undesirable" actions, and seeking her intervention.

The letter, dated January 9, described the action by Visva Bharati as brazenly "illegal", arguing that no proper inquiry was conducted to verify the "list of misconducts" flagged by the university as having been allegedly committed by Mr. Bhattacharya on different occasions.

A copy of the letter has been made available to PTI.

Mr. Bhattacharya was on December 22 told about his "discontinuation of service/contract with Visva Bharati" in a meeting of the executive council of the Central university, the letter to the President said.

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"A series of misconducts has been listed without specifying the dates and other details of the incident or the specific actions for which Professor Bhattacharya has been indicted. It is clear that no proper inquiry was conducted by the university authorities before initiating draconian disciplinary action against a university professor and office-bearer of the faculty association.

"Neither has there been a show cause notice issued to the professor concerned," stated the letter, undersigned by Mr. Chomsky, economist Amiya Bagchi, former director of Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Partha Chatterjee, XLRI Professor Sumit Sarkar and Jadavpur University Emeritus Professor Supriya Chaudhury among others.