THE CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY AND ITS CRITICS
The Teaching University of Calcutta, it seems, has fallen on evil days and evil tongues. Professor Jadu Nath Sarkar of Patna fame, the redoubtable champion of “efficiency, retrenchment and reform” in the University Education of Bengal, followed no doubt by several members of the Kartabhaja and Maharaja Sects (to use Prof. Sarkar’s own choice expressions), is again on the war-path. The acceptance of the Majority Report of the Post-Graduate Re-organisation Committee by the Calcutta University Senate has disturbed the nightly slumber and the appetite for daily meal of our valiant Reformer. The Professor speaks with a feeling of intense mortification that “realities are not as yet asserting themselves in the counsels of the present Senate” of the University, and he is dying to inaugurate in the affairs of the Calcutta University “the reign of law in the place of personal caprice and the enforcement of general principles instead of regard for particular individuals.” We should in all humility ask Prof. Sarkar, who waxes eloquent on “British peace, British administrative example and English education,” one significant question. Whose fault is it that “realities are not asserting themselves in the counsels of the present Senate”? One of Prof. Sarkar’s followers has suggested in a signed article written for the A. B. Patrika that the Senate is a packed body. But packed by whom? Under the Act of Incorporation, 1857, as amended by the Acts of 1876, 1904, 1911 and 1921, the Chancellor of the University is the “Governor of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal for the time being”. Under of the same Act the Vice-Chancellor is appointed by the Local Government of Bengal. Of the 100 Ordinary Fellows of the University 80 are nominated by the Chancellor and only 10 are elected by Registered Graduates. [Vide of the Indian Universities Act, 1904.] Under of the Act of
