The brand of politics in MU crisis : Planted, manufactured story
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 01 2018 -

The brand of politics in the MU impasse is now clear.

Far from letting the teacher in him speak to his conscience and accordingly act, it is clear that Professor Adya Prasad Pandey is not going out without a fight but it becomes extremely distasteful when the fight is reduced to an exercise of punching below the belt.

From playing the politics of pitching one set of students against the other, best exemplified in the open stand taken by a group of students some days back and the hills bandh and highway blockade that came along with this, the game has now gone beyond students and anything to do with the university, and seems to have entered the print media, wittingly or unwittingly.

It may have been a carefully planted story or it could have been a case of lack of knowledge of the situation on the part of the newspaper concerned, but it surely was interesting to see a Sunday newspaper carrying a report that the Fact Finding Team constituted by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry to probe the charges levelled at Professor AP Pandey had not ‘found any evidence of corruption against him.’

Herein lies the interesting part.

How, when and where did the Fact Finding Team conduct its probe ?

A point which was clearly brought out by the Registrar in charge of Manipur University, when he categorically stated that the information is false and based his side of the story on the fact that the Fact Finding Team was constituted by the Union MHRD only on July 17 while the said report said that the investigation started from July 10.

How could the investigation have started before the team was even constituted is the question raised by the Registrar in charge.

Any investigation would have necessitated the probe team to go to the varsity and go through the necessary files and documents.

How could the team have gone through the files and documents when the Administrative Department of Manipur University has been locked up ever since the agitation started from May 31, is the question that the Registrar in charge has raised.

Another senior Professor of MU on being contacted by The Sangai Express had pretty much the same thing to say when he asserted, “They (the probe team) never visited MU campus.”

How was the investigation conducted by not visiting the varsity ? Is this possible ?

The Registrar in charge went one step forward in claiming that the probe team has not submitted any report nor have they started any initial investigation.

If this is the case, then how did the report come about ?

Was it a case of shooting in the dark or a case of planting a story to confuse the people ?

Either way, this is distasteful and the sooner the said newspaper comes out with a clarification the better it would be for all.

At the same time it is also a scary thought to even entertain the idea that a story could be planted or manufactured so easily even as the MU crisis has been taking a turn for the worse.

The politics at play here is interesting and yet at the same time it is also alarming.