Since July, the department of comparative literature in Kolkata’s Jadavpur University has been caught in an extraordinary bind. A large section of its students from all five undergraduate and postgraduate classes have asked for an assistant professor to be replaced because he had allegedly sexually harassed a student at a party in February 2016, for which he was made to apologise before the full class. He went on leave for the rest of the year. He returned to the department in March this year, but students say they are uncomfortable attending his classes. Citing previous experiences of sexually coloured remarks he allegedly made in the classroom, most final-year postgraduate students have boycotted the optional course he teaches, picking other courses instead.

But the head of department Samantak Das said the assistant professor cannot be replaced because no formal complaint has been made about him to the internal complaints committee legally mandated to investigate sexual harassment complaints.

On their part, students say the woman who was molested at the party has left the university after completing her postgraduate course, and they cannot make a formal complaint to the committee on her behalf since more than a year has gone by. But they insist that their reservations must be taken seriously. In a public post on Facebook on November 22, accusing the professor of “several cases of sexual harassment over the last four years”, a final-year postgraduate student wrote: “We believe the unease and apprehension of a sizeable amount of the student population needs immediate acknowledgement and action.”

The student, who is one year junior to the woman who was allegedly molested, told Scroll.in that she wrote the Facebook post after a general body meeting of students from all five batches was held on Monday, November 20. She claimed the students collectively decided to go public with their complaints. “We did this because we had exhausted all our options within the department and the university,” the student said.

In a letter submitted to the department in August, the students had asked for the assistant professor to be replaced. Scroll.in reviewed the letter that carries the signatures of more than 200 students. About 250 students are currently studying in the department.

Samantak Das said he has forwarded all the student representations to the Vice Chancellor’s office. The Vice Chancellor, Suranjan Das, did not respond to Scroll.in’s calls and text messages.

The assistant professor did not respond to Scroll.in’s emailed questions. His name featured in the crowdsourced list of alleged sexual predators in Indian universities that widely circulated on social media in late October. In a series of reports on five cases featured on the list, Scroll.in has identified the academics since formal sexual harassment complaints had been filed against them. But in this case, we are refraining from disclosing the name of the assistant professor since no formal complaint about his alleged misconduct has been made with the internal complaints committee.

Jadavpur University (Credit: Jadavpur University)

Complaints to the department

The assistant professor, an alumnus of Jadavpur, has been teaching at the university since 2009. Students from the current batches claim to have heard complaints about him from their seniors as well.

“His general conduct was extremely problematic,” said the postgraduate student. “Our seniors have been sent inappropriate text messages in the middle of the night. He said things in class or circulated photographs that were supposedly part of his lectures but were in fact both irrelevant and inappropriate. It made students very uncomfortable but they did not know how to react.”

The postgraduate student said his inappropriate behaviour is practically department lore. “That is all we have, right?” she asked rhetorically. “Students tell each other. We all knew.”

According to the Facebook post, a “verbal complaint” against the assistant professor was made around May 2015. Scroll.in spoke to the complainant who was in her second-year undergraduate class when the incident took place, and is now in her final year postgraduate class.

She was the only student attending class one morning when the assistant professor allegedly said in Bengali: “Will you let me fondle your breasts?” The student said she walked out of the room immediately.

“Attendance is usually low for morning classes and that day, I was the only one,” she recalled. “He sat next to me and said it. He claimed he was quoting from a text but there was no reason to randomly pick this one line and say it looking into my eye.”

This student complained informally to the department head who promised to “look into it”. But the matter did not go much further than that. “We did not approach the complaints committee because we were confused,” she said. “Would the committee see it as harassment when the text being taught is Kamasutra? Our texts talk about sex and sexuality directly. Even when I had spoken up, I did not call it harassment. I just said he made me uncomfortable.”

Other students allege that the teacher has exploited this grey area for years, couching harassment in literary criticism in a way that confused them. For instance, the student who made the complaint in 2015 alleged he would talk about students’ bodies while discussing the physical attributes of the ideal female protagonist in Sanskrit literature.

Faculty members say this ambiguity made it difficult for the department to act against him. A former department head who is still teaching at the University, but did not want to be identified because she is not authorised to speak to the media, explained: “Students say he talks about erotic elements in literature in a certain way which makes them uncomfortable. This is very hard for the department to [investigate]. He teaches Kalidasa. To observe and restrict who is teaching in what way is tantamount to violating a teacher’s freedom.”

No direct action was taken in response to the 2015 allegation but the complainant believes it had a bearing on the department’s response to the graver allegations that followed a few months later.

Jadavpur University had seen massive protests against sexual harassment in 2014. That movement, 'Hok Kolorob', had thousands marching on Kolkata streets. (Credit: Ronny Sen)

A party off-campus

In February 2016, a postgraduate student, who is no longer at Jadavpur, alleged the assistant professor molested her at a party held at the home of a research scholar, outside the campus. “There were three girls at that party,” said one of the complainant’s batchmates. “They had all been drinking. The two men [the research scholar and the assistant professor] stopped the girls from leaving which scared them, and a fight took place in which one girl was slapped by the researcher. Scared, two girls locked themselves in a room. The third had passed out on the bed. When she came to, she found her clothes were not in place and the professor alone in the room with her.”

The student filed a written complaint with the head of department but not with the internal complaints committee.

“We asked them if we could forward the complaint but they refused,” said the former head of department. “It was a complicated case. The incident happened outside the campus and what exactly transpired remains obscure. However, the department felt that since the person involved is a teacher, he should have been more careful. A series of meetings were held with the complainants and they said they just wanted him to acknowledge he had been guilty and an unconditional apology.”

The complainant’s batchmate, however, said the three women were indirectly discouraged from filing a complaint by the faculty members. “They were told they may get into trouble because they were drinking outside college and might have to deal with the police,” she recalled. “One of them was getting married and did not want to [risk] her family or her fiancé’s getting to know.”

After a long series of meetings, which were attended by the Vice Chancellor, according to both students and faculty members, the assistant professor submitted a written apology in March 2016. He read out the apology before the entire postgraduate class to which the three women belonged, in the presence of the Vice Chancellor and some faculty members.

“We were also told [by the department] he was being suspended for a year,” said a student who was a part of that batch.

Suspension or sabbatical?

But in March 2017, when the assistant professor returned to Jadavpur University, he told students that he had not been suspended – he had simply gone on study leave to complete his PhD thesis. The current head of the department, Samantak Das and the former department head, confirmed his claim.

This left the students feeling betrayed. “I cannot believe we fell for that [the claim that the professor had been suspended],” said the student from that batch. “He was basically given a reward, a year’s paid holiday. The department lied to pacify us and put him out of sight till we were out of the college.”

But the next batch of final-year postgraduate students was not about to let the matter slide.

The woman who had complained in 2015 started protesting even before the assistant professor returned, when students realised he was set to resume as course-coordinator for an optional paper she was keen on studying. “That is when students started talking to each other and holding general body meetings,” she said.

The episode has left even students who had not been taught by him, like first-year undergraduates, wary of the professor. They do not want to take his classes, said the student who wrote the Facebook post.

From June onwards, various batches of students have written to the department asking for the teacher to be replaced. In August, more than 200 students from all five batches of undergraduate and postgraduate studies made a joint representation to the head of the department.

A dead end

In June, Das met the final-year postgraduate students. “We were given a few options,” recounted one of them. “We were asked to give him a chance for a few weeks, not take up the course at all or take the matter to the internal complaints committee.” The students elected to boycott the optional paper taught by the assistant professor.

Explaining why they did consider a complaint to the committee an option, the student said: “The complaints committee will not accept a case that is over a year-and-a-half old and where the batch has left the university.”

A member of the internal complaints committee at Jadavpur University had earlier told Scroll.in that it enquires into incidents that were reported within three months. However, another teacher, also with the department, said committees can inquire into older cases too, provided a third-party reports it within three month of learning about it.

“There has been no complaint against this teacher since he joined in March,” he said. “All the representations say that the students are apprehensive about attending his classes, about what he might do. The department cannot take action on the basis of apprehensions.”

He added that the only way to replace the professor would be to dismiss him from service, which the department cannot do because the teacher is a government employee. Jadavpur University is a public university funded by the West Bengal government.

Another meeting was held on October 23, this time including all students, teachers and the Vice Chancellor, but it brought no resolution. The student alleged that faculty members have been trying to coerce students into abandoning the fight but a teacher denied this and alleged the exact opposite – that some students were forcing others to sign the representations.

“We are at a loss,” said the former head of comparative literature. “This demand has been made in the light of something that has already been resolved. It cannot be taken as grounds for expelling him. At the same time, we are sympathetic to the students’ concerns. So many of them have said they are uncomfortable.”

Meanwhile, the impasse continues. On Monday, students from all five batches met and a tenuous consensus was arrived at – to make the matter public.