KOLKATA: Jadavpur University looks like it’s hurtling towards an administrative crisis, unprecedented in the middle of an admission season, with the three major stakeholders on the campus — the administration, the faculty and students — locked in a battle of nerves over the admission procedure in the arts faculty.Vice-chancellor Suranjan Das , who had to undergo two rounds of forced detention in his office in 10 days because of students’ gheraos and returned home late on Thursday night, spent Friday visiting two residences: one was that of state education minister Partha Chatterjee, who had weighed in on behalf of a no-test admission process; the other address he visited was Raj Bhavan, whose resident— governor Keshari Nath Tripathi — asked for a report on the JU stand-off on Thursday.Teachers from four departments—Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Bengali and Education — wrote to Das on Friday, saying they wanted to follow their English department colleagues in staying away from the admission process because the university had said the board of studies had no role to play in the process. A large section of professors, affiliated to the Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association, chose not to take classes on Friday.And students, the third side of the triangle, who are on an indefinite class boycott began an indefinite hunger strike on Friday night, demanding a return to admission tests.In the middle of all this, International Relations departmental head Kakoli Sengupta and the departments of Sanskrit and Economics provided an interesting sub-text; they broke ranks with other arts faculty departments, choosing to support the JU executive council decision to scrap admission tests and switch to a board marks-based admission.JU has gone through all this before but the administration this time is more worried because of the agitation’s timing; it fears that the stir may cast a shadow not only on the undergraduate admission schedule but also on the counselling of students for postgraduate courses, scheduled to begin on July12.A wary administration, therefore, spent Friday estimating the impact of the agitation on the admission process and opted to wait till 3pm on Monday to announce its future course.With the situation showing signs of spiralling into a “hok kolorob” type of movement, which JU witnessed four years ago (forcing VC Abhijit Chakrabarty to resign), the current VC — accompanied by pro-VC Pradip Ghosh — went to the education minister’s Naktala residence on Friday morning to brief him about the developments.According campus sources, Das expressed his “growing discomfort” over continuing in the post anticipating a deep crisis after the executive council’s “unanimous” decision to scrap admission tests this year. Later in the day, Das visited Raj Bhavan and told governor Tripathi (also the university’s chancellor) about the pressure building up within the campus. Das said he would submit a detailed report on the impasse and act on the chancellor’s advice.Pressure also built up from the alumni, who went on an overdrive against the university decision to scrap the “timetested” admission tests. They mobilised 4,000-plus e-signatures by Friday evening, which they planned to forward to the VC. A group of Class-XII passouts, too, called on JU registrar Chiranjib Bhattacharya and told him that they wanted admission tests back.Many faculty members said they were surprised by Das’s visit to the education minister’s house and felt this was “unbecoming” of a VC. “Did the state government send any circular to JU, asking the VC to scrap admission tests? If not, why is the VC so keen on taking a decision that corresponds to the minister’s wish?” a teacher asked.Chatterjee himself said he had “just given his personal opinion”. “I said there should not be two different procedures for admission in the same faculty. But I added that the state had not said anything to the university. I have learnt that the EC has taken a unanimous decision regarding merit-based admission in the Arts faculty,” he said.The university now has less than a week to take several decisions before the admissions start on July 12. “Officers can handle the e-process but problems are likely to crop up from July12 (for postgraduate admission) and July 27 (for undergraduate admission) during counselling because the verification of records has to be done by teachers,” a Juta member said.

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