A letter to the governor from the teachers of Jadavpur University

Sri Gopal Krishna Gandhi

Hon’ble Governor of West Bengal

Raj Bhavan

Kolkata March 20, 2007

Dear Sir,

We, teachers of Jadavpur University, feel deeply shocked and anguished at the mass killing in Nandigram that took place on March, 14. We find this action, planned and executed in tandem by the state machinery and the ruling party, to be a betrayal of the trust the people of West Bengal put in the elected authorities. We do not accept the excuse that the government has offered in terms of restoring the rule of law in Nandigram. No such excuse is acceptable for a state action that involved thousands of police and paramilitary armed with automatic weapons, and that was obviously meant to make way for the armed party-men marching behind the police shield. We have reason to believe that the casualties are higher than the official record; many villagers, including children, are missing, and many of them might have died. Allegations of rape and house-raids have been made by many villagers and social workers. We have reason to believe all this was part of a coordinated attempt to crush the resistance of the people of Nandigram and teach them a lesson. We feel the efforts at rationalizing this brutality adds to the crime. It is not possible for us to be engaged in an education that seeks to nurture a critical citizenship and be silent in the face of a dangerous assault on the very foundations of democracy. We condemn this action in strongest terms, and express solidarity with the protest that people in West Bengal and elsewhere are organizing. We hope this protest will contribute to the process of building a broad-based democratic resistance against any such state repression in the future.

Yours sincerely

Name Department

Sampa Chaudhuri Bengali

Dipanwita Ghosh Bengali

Pinakesh Chandra Sarkar Bengali

Amitava Das Bengali

Udaykumar Chakrabarty Bengali

Achintya Biswas Bengali

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