KOLKATA: Students of Jadavpur University (JU) on Monday repainted graffiti on the campus that was whitewashed by the university administration after West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari took exception to them. Freshly painted graffiti emerged in the morning, with students claiming it was a bid to “reclaim” the walls of the campus.
One of the freshly painted graffiti “quoted German philosopher Karl Marx”, saying, “We have no compassion/And we ask no compassion from you/ When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.” Graffiti quoting Urdu couplets and Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh were also repainted.
Several graffiti on the campus were whitewashed on August 29 and 30 after Mr. Adhikari issued a stern warning to weed out “anti-national” elements from the campus. Graffiti in support of Palestine and Maoist leader Kishenji were among those that were whitewashed.
The university has been on the boil since August 19, when Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad supporters allegedly entered the campus and tried to tear posters and burn flags put up by a Left-backed students’ union.
Art Against Oppression, a JU student cultural collective that urged students to bring their brushes back to campus, said repainting is both an artistic expression and political resistance.
Vice-Chancellor Chiranjeeb Bhattacharjee said walls on the campus are the property of the university and he does not “encourage” political graffiti though it has been a tradition at the university. “I request those who are engaging in political graffiti to rethink what is the utility of it in the age of social media. We will also have to look at whether other universities follow such traditions,” he said.
The Vice-Chancellor added that the “Reclaim the Wall” call given by the students should not be seen in the same spirit as the “Reclaim the Night” call given by civil society groups after the rape and murder of a woman doctor at the R.G. Kar Hospital in Kolkata in August 2024.
Meanwhile, Communist Party of India (Marxist) State Secretary Mohammad Salim said the wall writings reflected public sentiment and could not be dismissed by simply erasing them. “Read what is written on the walls and understand what people are trying to say. The issue is not whether one agrees with a slogan, but whether people have the freedom to express their grievances and dissent,” he said.
JU’s walls have always been more than walls – they are archive, argument, and barometer. The cycle is familiar: provocation, whitewash, repainting. But this time the CM’s direct intervention has turned a campus tradition into a state-university confrontation. For students, repainting is assertion of autonomy. For administration, it is a management nightmare between state pressure and student defiance.