Jadavpur University: From Swadeshi Beacon to ‘Dimagi Naxal’ Bastion, Now a Return to Its Roots

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari led the Gerua Samman Yatra from Golpark to Jadavpur University on 9 September 2026, declaring that separatist slogans and insults to saffron would no longer be tolerated on campus. Joined by monks, seers and Naga Sadhus, the march projected the government’s effort to reconnect the university with its Swadeshi origins and nationalist legacy after decades of ideological conflict, political violence and recurring controversies over campus security.

 

The soil once blessed by the footprints of Sri Aurobindo and Rabindranath Tagore, the institution born from the Swadeshi movement as a defiant act of national self-reliance, today stands at a historic crossroads. For decades it was reduced to a laboratory of anti-national ideology, a “dark paradise” of Dimagi Naxals who glorified violence, raised slogans of “Kashmir Mange Azadi,” offered salutes to Maoists, and turned hostels into dens of drugs, ragging and political terror.

 

On 9 September 2026, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, dressed in saffron and carrying the saffron flag, led the Gerua Samman Yatra which was a three-kilometre saffron honour march from Golpark to the 8B bus stand outside Jadavpur University. Accompanied by Naga Sadhus, seers, monks all chanting “Jai Shri Ram,” the Chief Minister issued a clear, uncompromising warning that the era of insulting the saffron colour and the Indian nation on this campus is over. “I will uproot the ‘Kashmir Mange Azadi’ gang and those who raise ‘Red Salute to Kishenji’ from Jadavpur, the land of Rishi Aurobindo,” he declared. The purification of Jadavpur University has begun.

 

 

Jadavpur University is one of India’s most powerful living monuments to the freedom struggle.

 

In 1905, when Lord Curzon partitioned Bengal, students across the province rose in revolt. The British responded with the repressive Carlyle Circular of 22 October 1905, stripping scholarships and expelling nationalist students. Nationalist leaders refused to accept colonial education as the only path. On 11 March 1906, at a historic meeting of the Bengal Landholders’ Association, the National Council of Education, Bengal (NCE) was founded. Its mission was to create a complete system of literary, scientific and technical education under national control, free from British domination.

 

Sri Aurobindo Ghose became the first Principal of Bengal National College. Rabindranath Tagore, Sir Rashbehari Ghosh, Raja Subodh Chandra Mullick, Bipin Chandra Pal, Ananda Coomaraswamy and several other eminent figures contributed their intellect and resources to this national educational movement. Alongside it, the Bengal Technical Institute was established to equip Indians with modern technical skills and promote self-reliance. In 1921, Sir Rashbehari Ghosh bequeathed ₹10 lakh and his Alipore mansion to the cause. Land was subsequently acquired in Jadavpur, where Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee laid the foundation stone in 1922. The main building was named Aurobindo Bhawan.

 

After Independence, the West Bengal Legislative Assembly formally established Jadavpur University on 24 December 1955. The National Council of Education donated all its assets to the newly formed university, with Dr Triguna Sen serving as its first Rector. Designed by Nandalal Bose, the university’s emblem depicts the flame of knowledge, culture and ethics rising from a hundred-petalled lotus. Rooted in Indian civilisation, it embodies the institution’s enduring journey from darkness towards light.

 

 

The rot began in the late 1960s. Inspired by the Naxalbari uprising and Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a section of students at Jadavpur embraced armed revolution. Jadavpur campus walls blazed with “China’s Chairman is our Chairman.” Teacher humiliation, office vandalism and bombings were normalised as “revolutionary acts.”

 

The darkest chapter came on 30 December 1970. Vice-Chancellor Professor Gopal Chandra Sen, a nationalist educator who refused to cancel examinations under Naxal pressure, was ambushed near the Central Library pond (lake) while walking to his university quarters. Engineering student Rana Bose and his cadre beat him with iron rods and stabbed him multiple times to death. The killer was glorified as a revolutionary hero by leftist student organisations.

 

After the Left Front came to power in 1977, systematic capture followed. The Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association (JUTA) became a political instrument. Faculty appointments were decided from Alimuddin Street. Nationalist scholars were sidelined. Opposition to CCTV cameras was framed as a defence of “freedom,” but the real purpose was to create a permanent no-go zone and a safe haven for drug cartels, illegal outsiders in hostels, and fugitive radical networks.

 

In August 2023, first-year student Swapnodeep Kundu who was only 18 years old was subjected to demonic ragging who died after falling from a hostel balcony, his last words was “I am not gay.”

 

Assistant Professor Mohammad Suman Nihar, who stood against campus drug networks, was humiliated, falsely charged and driven to death.

 

In March 2025, clashes erupted at Jadavpur University during a visit by West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu, and his convoy was attacked. Vehicles were damaged and a university facility was reportedly set on fire.

 

Months later, police arrested Hindol Majumdar, a former JU student pursuing doctoral research in Spain, in connection with the violence. His family and a professor disputed the allegation, maintaining that he was outside India when the incident occurred. The case remained subject to investigation.

 

By August 2026, the pattern continued as the unauthorised meetings, offensive slogans against Goddess Saraswati and Sanatan culture, “Kashmir Mange Azadi” and “Manipur Mange Azadi,” and savage attacks with iron rods on nationalist students. Dimagi Naxals or the urban intellectual carriers of Maoist ideology turned a temple of knowledge into a battlefield against the Indian nation.

 

 

The Gerua Samman Yatra of 9 September 2026 can be termed as a civilisational assertion, as Naga Sadhus who have taken up arms to protect Dharma marched alongside the Chief Minister. Conch shells blew, Vande Mataram and the Gayatri Mantra filled the air, and saffron flags fluttered at the gates of the university that once produced engineers and scientists for a free India.

 

 

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari made the intent unambiguous that Jadavpur is the land of Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda. Insulting the saffron colour and slogans seeking the fragmentation of India will not be tolerated. The government has already moved the West Bengal Universities and Colleges (Administration and Regulation) Amendment Bill to transfer staff, break the monopoly of partisan teachers’ associations, and restore academic integrity. Central funds of ₹1,000 crore and state funds of ₹300 crore have been promised to make Jadavpur a genuine centre of excellence.

 

CCTV installation, permanent expulsion of illegal outsiders from hostels, impartial probes into past violence (including the 1970 murder of VC Gopal Sen if necessary), and the crushing of drug and political mafias are the practical steps of this purification.

 

 

Jadavpur University was born as an act of national resistance so that Indian students could master science, technology and culture without colonial chains. For decades, Dimagi Naxals and their political patrons tried to erase that memory and replace it with Maoist anarchy, drug cartels and anti-national slogans.