Student protest against Senate poll delay dominates PU scene
Akashdeep Virk
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 26
The student protest over the delay in elections to Senate, the governing body of Panjab University, was one of the major developments on the campus in 2024. The other significant events were much-awaited recruitment of regular faculty after 2014, first-ever victory of an Independent candidate for the post of Panjab University Campus Student Council (PUCSC) president, maiden win of the BJP-backed student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s candidate in the PUCSC poll without an alliance. Besides, there were protests by student organisations under the banner of the Panjab University Bachao Morcha against the delay in Senate poll, which is still on, without the support of a majority of students, the student council and campus parties.
After a long time, the campus also saw a gathering of mainstream political leaders, mainly from the Congress, who extended support to the student protest against the delay in holding Senate poll. The protesting students clashed with the police twice this year — first, when they allegedly tried to disrupt the address of Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann in Law Auditorium and many days after when they were blocking the Gate No. 2 of the campus. An FIR was registered against 14 students with regard to the first incident.
While the university fared well in the QS University Asia rankings by climbing up from the 301-350 bracket to rank 269 among 984 Asian educational institutions; retained its position in 601-800 bracket with an improved overall score from 37-41.8 in 2024 to 38.2-43.2 this year, the varsity also faced the third consecutive slip of ranking in the Ministry of Education’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). After attaining 41st overall rank with 51.23 points in 2022, and 44th with 53.31 score last year, the university slipped to 60th position with a score of 52.99 in the latest list. According to teachers and experts, PU has not been able to improve much on a lot of parameters, especially research, due to one major lacuna, which is the shortage of regular faculty. Guest faculty members cannot supervise scholars.
Realising the gravity of the situation, this year, the university finally initiated the process to recruit regular faculty members. It attempted to fill around 50 posts advertised by the authorities in 2022. However, with the pre-screening, screening and interview being a long-stretched process, all vacancies could not be filled.
This year, voters elected a mixed council with Anurag Dalal, an Independent, as president; NSUI’s Archit Garg as vice-president, Vineet Yadav from INSO as secretary. The BJP-backed ABVP got a chance in the body after 13 years with the election of Jaswinder Rana to the post of joint secretary.
In another first, many students received pre-recorded calls asking them and their family members to ensure support to a particular candidate for the post of president.
As 2024 comes to a close, Panjab University reflects a year of both challenges and progress. With Senate still a bone of contention between the protesters and the authorities, next few days of this year could still bring some news for the stakeholders and the students.