BHUBANESWAR: With Union Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s suggestion for renaming Ravenshaw University snowballing into a major political controversy, the BJP on Sunday rushed to his defence stating the issue needed extensive debate.
Deputy chief minister KV Singh Deo and Higher Education minister Suryabanshi Suraj said the Union minister had already clarified that his proposal for changing the name of the state’s premier university was his personal opinion. There should be a debate on the issue, they said.
Asked about his opinion on the proposal to rename Ravenshaw University, Suraj said, “It does not hold any significance.”
Lashing at the BJD and Congress for criticising Pradhan, state BJP spokesperson Anil Biswal said at a media conference that the regional party had handed over the reins to a non-Odia officer when it was in power. Now it has gone a step further to praise a British officer who was responsible for the death of about 20 lakh people during 1866 Na’anka Durbhikhya (the great Odisha famine), he said.
“The BJD and Congress have either not understood what Pradhan said or they do not have the intellectual capacity to perceive the context in which the Union minister made such a statement,” Biswal said.
Referring to the book ‘Desha Kala Patra’, a historical collection of writings by renowned Odia author Jagannath Prasad Das, Biswal said, he has depicted the role of TE Ravenshaw, the then commissioner of Odisha division, when lakhs of people of the state were dying of starvation.
“How could the BJD and Congress leaders digest the uncharitable remarks of the British commissioner on Odia people before the George Campbell Commission, which was investigating the causes of famine in Odisha?” he asked.
The BJP leader further said that Pradhan had maintained that changing of the name of the 156-year-old institution was his personal opinion and called for a larger debate on the issue which is an essential aspect of a healthy democracy.
“When the entire country is trying to shed the colonial tag and come out of the legacy of invaders, this is the right time to give the sons of the soil, who played a significant role in establishment of the institution, their due,” Biswal said.
He said there is enough material evidence on the contribution of Mayurbhanj king Maharaj Sriram Chandra Bhanja Deo and Kanika king Rajendra Narayan Bhanja Deo to the institution which was known as Kataka College before it was renamed after Ravenshaw.
This apart, noted educationist Prof Prana Krushna Parija, Prof Balabhadra Prasad, Prof GB Dhal, Prof Ramnath Mohanty and Prof Harihar Mishra among others had rejected lucrative job offers abroad and came back to the state. They all played a significant role in the growth of the institution, he said.