Varanasi: Trouble is brewing at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) campus once more, with students demanding action against Vice Chancellor Prof Rakesh Bhatnagar, accusing him of being anti-Hindi.
Students heckled Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Thursday when he visited the campus, demanding Bhatnagar’s removal.
Nishank was in the BHU to lay foundation of students’ activity centre, boys’ hostel and faculty residential block at IIT-BHU and to attend other functions.
The students claimed that the vice-chancellor discriminated against Hindi-speaking students.
Hoardings have also appeared in different localities accusing the vice chancellor on these issues. Similar hoardings had also appeared before the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
These hoardings said: ‘Rajbhasha Hindi ki upeksha va apman kyon’ (Why is Hindi being ignored and insulted) and ‘Rajbhasha Hindi ko Rashtrabhasha ghosit kiya jaye’ (Make Hindi national language).
The students are also demanding a judicial probe into the recruitment process of assistant professors.
“We strongly oppose the discrimination against Hindi-speaking candidates in the interviews for the teaching posts,” said a fellow of BHU, Karan Kumar Singh, who had also faced an interview for the post of assistant professor at the department of Ancient Indian History and Culture and Archaeology in the first week of January.
He alleged that he was asked to answer only in English during the interview.
Earlier, a group of students had also staged demonstration on January 4 and submitted a memorandum to the office of registrar alleging that the Hindi-speaking candidates were discouraged to take part in the interview.
However, BHU spokesperson Rajesh Singh denied the allegation saying that the interview was conducted as per the prescribed norms and no one misbehaved with the candidates neither was there any favouritism.
Prasanta Patnaik