Six days ago, a photograph went viral on social media. It was a scene from a stage performance by students of Savitribai Phule Pune University showing an actor dressed as Sita sitting and smoking a cigarette.

Members of right-wing groups had stormed the campus, defaced its premises, and clashed with students and professors. Five students and a professor were arrested, but the university still hasn’t filed a single complaint against those who assaulted students that Friday evening.

Instead, SPPU issued a show-cause notice to the arrested professor, Pravin Bhole, asking for an “explanation” for why the play was performed at all. The administration also said Bhole could file a police complaint on his own – a suggestion that has left other faculty members frustrated.

“We will not let anything bad happen to Bhole sir,” said a senior professor on condition of anonymity. “If required, all us HODs will resign. But we will not let injustice happen to him.”

Bhole and the five students, meanwhile, were released on bail on February 4. Newslaundry learned the students left the university hostel for their homes, worried about their safety.

Sequence of events 

The play in question was performed by a group of first-year students from the Lalit Kala Kendra department as part of their internal assessment. It was described as an “experimental” act, an adaptation of the famous Dashavatar play from Maharashtra’s Konkan region, depicting the backstage lives of actors.

Bhole, the head of the Lalit Kala Kendra department, was the students’ examiner. 

About three minutes after the performance began, ABVP ‘activists’ allegedly disrupted the performance and attacked the students. A day later, members of the BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, staged a protest on campus and vandalised the Lalit Kala Kendra building, where the performance had taken place.

Fuelling the anger were “edited” clips from the three-minute performance that found their way to social media. And Bhole and the students were arrested based on an FIR filed by an ABVP functionary. They were booked under sections 295A, 294, 143, 147, 116 and 117 of the penal code, with charges including insulting religious beliefs, rioting and unlawful assembly.

The university also formed a fact-finding committee to investigate the matter. In a press release, the university said “parody of any person, legend or historical figure is completely wrong and prohibited”. A police officer was suspended for failing to act after the vandalism on campus. And 50 ABVP members were reportedly booked for an “unpermitted morcha” on campus on Saturday.

But the university hasn’t filed a police complaint so far. Instead, on February 5, SPPU’s Vice Chancellor Suresh Gosavi sent Bhole a show-cause notice that asked for an “explanation” within “72 hours” on the play. On the same day, Gosavi reportedly sent Bhole a letter that “authorised” him to file a police complaint in the matter if he wanted to. 

Bhole was not reachable for comment. Gosavi told Newslaundry he would “respond later”. Newslaundry also spoke to Inspector Balaji Pandhare from the Chaturshringi police station, who said “no action can be taken until a complaint is filed”.

A play on ‘what an artist shouldn’t do’

The senior professor quoted above in this story said the performance had merely been “part of the examination where students have to write a script and conduct a play”.

“I wish people could have seen the entire play and then reacted,” he said. “It was a drama about backstage activities of theatre artists who are performing the roles of mythological and historical characters. The entire drama was about what ethics an artist should follow while wearing the costume of a character, or what an artist should refrain from doing while playing such characters.”

He said the students had been acting out “what an artist should not do” when the violence began. 

The five students are all 18-19 years old. A professor told Newslaundry they were “badly beaten up”.

“We had to send them home. Living in the hostel in the present scenario can endanger them,” said another professor on condition of anonymity. “On Friday when the students were attacked, we managed to save them. One student fractured his hand. One attacker stepped on the neck of a girl when she was lying on the ground. We kept the students in the hostel and, that night itself, transported some of them to safe places with the help of their friends.”

Meanwhile, professors and HODs across SPPU’s 60-odd departments have rallied behind Bhole and the students. Several of them told Newslaundry they’re upset that the university administration is “silent on the violence”.

The senior professor said a group of faculty members had met Gosavi and “asked him whether he would take a stand or not”. They also submitted a letter, signed by around five faculty members, to Gosavi condemning the violence. 

However, at least five professors told Newslaundry that Gosavi “asked the teachers to file a police complaint instead”.

“From his words, it seems he believes Bhole sir is the culprit,” the senior professor said. “We spoke to the VC to take action on behalf of the university but he is not doing anything. He also gave strict instructions not to go to the press. But some of us are still talking to the press. ”

‘Pattern of violence’

Harsh Jagzap, head of the university’s political department, told Newslaundry the faculty is worried about the violence and the “suppression of expression of students”.

“This started with the tenure of the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government in 2014-15,” he alleged. “A pattern was made where progressive students were subject to violence and, after physical violence was committed against them, false cases were slapped against them using the police...Such incidents stopped during the Uddhav Thackeray government.”

As examples of this “pattern” under Fadnavis, he cited a clash between ABVP activists and students at Fergusson College in March 2016 and another at Savitribai Phule Pune University in February 2017.

To “curb such a negative atmosphere”, Jagzap said sympathetic faculty members contested in the elections to the university’s senate in January 2023. The senate, headed by the VC, comprises over 100 members including two members of the state legislative assembly, a representative from the municipal council, and 18 principals of colleges. It works towards the “improvement” of the university.

“Our agenda was to bring academic freedom and liberal environment for all the sections of the campus,” he said. “Whether Hindutva nationalist, leftist or Ambedkarite, all have freedom to contribute for the nation in their capacity and should not be obstructed in the campus…In the past year, we created an atmosphere because of which all the teachers united against the violence and condemned it.”

The senior professor said: “ Some politically oriented right-wing elements just want to spread terror across the universities of India. But this is SPPU and this is Maharashtra, a state of social and cultural reformers, a state of progressive thinkers. We will definitely not let anyone disturb the fabric of it.”

Jagzap added that people from a “certain kind of politics” want to “intervene with the cultural politics” of the university, “similar to what they did to JNU”.

“But this will not happen because it’s Maharashtra and it has a great tradition of social progressive movements,” he said firmly. “We always call it the Maharashtra of Phule, Shahu and Ambedkar.”

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