KOLKATA: Left-leaning students at the Jadavpur University (JU) in Kolkata ‘reclaimed’ the walls and repainted graffiti hours after that were erased by the university authorities on Saturday when the West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari instructed to take proper and necessary action raising objections to some writings.
Repainting graffiti came back again on the erased portion of the walls inside the JU campus.
On Monday morning, writings quoting statements “We have no compassion/And we ask no compassion from you/When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror” of Karl Marx were found on the erased portion of a wall inside the campus.
The university authorities could not confirm anything about who were instrumental behind ‘reclaiming’ the walls with such writings so far till this afternoon. But the Left-leaning student organisations mainly the CPI-M-affiliated SFI has already announced its programme ‘take back your walls’ on wall-writings at the university around 12.30 pm today.
On Saturday, during a meeting outside the campus the Chief Minister had urged the JU authorities to erase the writings and graffiti claiming them ‘anti-national’.
Suvendu had also objected to graffiti such as “Red Salute to Kisenji” and “Free Free Palestine” in an address at a gathering outside the JU campus on Saturday.
“You will give a red salute to this Kisenji, and we will allow you to do this while running the government?.... Free Free Palestine? Instead of this, write Free Free Pak-Occupied Kashmir. Write PoK must be handed back to us,” the chief minister had said.
On 24 August, Suvendu had posted a video on his X handle in which he also objected to graffiti reading “Fascists do not deserve Democracy, They deserve a bullet in the head” and “Break fascists with Red”.
Several Left student organisations at the JU on Sunday vowed to “reclaim” the walls and repaint graffiti that were erased by the university authorities on Saturday following Suvendu’s threat directing to take proper action.
As part of the campaign, the SFI wrote its name and the date “28.02.2027” on several walls inside the JU campus, marking the date until which it claimed the walls as part of its “Reclaim the Wall” campaign on Sunday.
The SFI also plans to repaint “Free Palestine” on a wall of Meghnad Saha Bhavan, an academic building. The slogan, according to some SFI activists, was a call to condemn what the organisation described as the genocide by Israel.
The SFI will also paint the Palestinian flag, which was erased along with the graffiti on Saturday.
“However, as part of our ‘Reclaim the Wall’ drive, on Sunday we wrote the organisation’s name and mentioned the date 28.02.2027, indicating that the wall has been reclaimed. We will again paint ‘Free Palestine’ on Monday,” they told reporters.
Indranuj Ray, unit president of the ultra-Left Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF) at JU, told an English daily on Sunday: “When the state government publicly calls ‘Fascists deserve a bullet in their head’, ‘Fascism is not to be Debated, it is to be Smashed’, ‘Break Fascism with Red’, ‘Free Palestine’ wall writings ‘anti-national’ and insists on removing them, they publicly accept that the state is ruled by the fascists.”