Page:The Modern Review (July-December 1925).pdf/428

Rh particular subject along with members of the paid teaching staff of the University must be insisted on as a preliminary measure in the election of Faculties and of the Syndicate.

The attempts of the late Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee to frustrate fresh legislation in Bengal for the reform of the Calcutta University are still fresh in our mind. Assam forms a small fraction of the jurisdiction of the Calcutta University and Assam was made to play a very prominent part in the opposition to the proposed legislative reform. The jurisdiction of the Calcutta University is the biggest stumbling block at present in the way of its reform. Last year or the year before, a committee was appointed by the Government of India to settle questions about the reform of the Calcutta University by legislative enactments. But for some time past, the case appears to have been shelved. The state of affairs of the Calcutta University, its bankruptcy, degradation of the primary and higher education in the province, manipulation of deficit budgets by the party in power, all point in one direction, e.g., the immediate necessity of a legislative enactment for its reform. If it is beyond the jurisdiction of the Legislative Council of Bengal, then it should be taken up at once by the Legislative Assembly. The party in power" know that their life depends upon the existence of the corrupt boroughs and the system of manipulation of nominations, their ability to pack the Boards of Studies and the Syndicate with their paid men or men whose interests are bound up with their own existence. If education is to be reformed in Bengal, then fresh legislation about the Calcutta University is absolutely and immediately necessary.