On retirement, Manoj Paul organises open discussion; civil society lends full support to him

way2barak, Dec.1: On 30 November, 2022, Dr Manoj Kumar Paul, Principal of Women’s College, Silchar retired from service after remaining in that position for around 9 long years. He handed over the charge to senior most teacher, Tripti Das of Sanskrit Department. However, his tenure as Principal was not at all a bed of roses.

Post-retirement, on the same evening, Dr Paul wrote in Bengali in his Facebook wall, “শত্রুদের মুখে ছাই দিয়ে মাথা উঁচু করেই কলেজ থেকে বিদায় নিলাম আজ। এক দমবন্ধ নোংরা পরিবেশ থেকে বের হয়ে বুক ভরে শ্বাস নিচ্ছি। গত আট বছর ধরে শুধু নোংরা পরিস্কার করার কাজ করেছি। কলেজের আরো অনেক উন্নয়ন করা সম্ভব হতো যদি সহযোগিতা পেতাম। কিন্তু পেয়েছি বিরোধিতা, শত্রুতা এবং আমার সব ধরনের ক্ষতি করার চেষ্টা আর সব ধরনের অসহযোগিতা। সব ধরনের প্রত্যাহ্বানের মধ্যে থেকেও সব সময় যতটুকু সম্ভব উন্নতি করার চেষ্টা করেছি। বিচারের ভার সমাজ ও সময়ের ওপর দেওয়া থাক। আমি কৃতজ্ঞ সমাজের সেই সকল ব্যক্তির প্রতি যারা অপবাদে কান না দিয়ে আমার প্রতি আস্থা রেখেছিলেন এবং সেই দুর্দিনে ও আমার পাশে দাঁড়িয়ে অন্যায়ের বিরুদ্ধে রুখে দাঁড়াতে সাহস জুগিয়েছিলেন।”

This when translated into English means, “Giving a damn to my enemies, I left the college today with my head held high. I am now being able to inhale fresh air after coming out of the vicious and suffocating environment. For the last eight years, I have been clearing only dirt. I could have done much more development works for the college. had I got the cooperation of all. However, I got only opposition, enmity and non-cooperation. Attempts were even made to cause me harm. Despite all odds, I tried to work for the development of the college. I leave the onus of justice to the society and time. I am grateful to those people in the society who turned a deaf ear to all rumours spread against me and rested their trust during those dark days, which gave me strength in my struggle.”

On the next day of his retirement, that is, on Thursday, Dr Manoj Kumar Paul organised an open discussion to share his experiences after his retirement as the principal of Women’s College. He further stated that he would like to share his dreams with which he had joined as the Principal of Women’s College, his success and failures centering women education in general and women’s college in particular.

The discussion began with the opening words by Dipak Sengupta, a teacher, writer and social activist. On the dias were Gouri Dutta Biswas, Taimur Raja Choudhury and two former Presidents of the Governing Body of Women’s College during the tenure of Principalship of Dr Manoj Kumar Paul. This was followed by the speech of Dr Paul. He narrated the ordeal he had faced in Women’s College, the ‘chakrabihu’ inside which hard attempts were made to entangle him. He also upholded how foul means were adopted by a Governing President to cause immense harm to him by misusing his office of power. He said, “Even the GB President has put in negative remark in his service book which would be of great problem in getting his pension benefits.” At a time, his voice became emotion chocked and he was unable to speak.

Speaking during the occasion, Taimur Raja Choudhury and Arijit Aditya from the world of media narrated how the civil society understood the evil plans of some persons to defame Dr Paul and so stood firm behind him like a rock. They also expressed surprise as to how people can go to such an extent of causing harm to an active person like Dr Manoj Kumar Paul. Expressing his views, Sudarshan Gupta, a leader of ACTA also said that defying the report of government investigating agency, a particular person has been trying to cause immense harm to a persons for long years, which was unbecoming of any normal gentleman.

The two former Governing Body Presidents Dr Sourindra Kr Bhattacharjee and Samar Kanti Roy Choudhury spoke about how tremendous pressure was created by a section during the Governing Body meetings to take disciplinary actions against Dr Manoj Kumar Paul. These people they said behaved like blind persons who were not eager to accept the enquiry reports conducted by government agencies and who gave clean chit to Paul.

Other speakers Gouri Dutta Biswas, Chandan Paul Choudhury, Dr Apratim Nag, Ashu Paul, Imad Uddin Bulbul, Dr Sima Ghosh, Dr Debasish Kar, Buddhadev Choudhury too took a dig at attempts made by a person to defame and cause harm to Dr Manoj Kumar Paul. They praised his courage for which he continued successfully as the Principal and also involved himself in various other social and humanitarian activities.

Around 2015-16, Dr Manoj Kumar Paul was accused of sending an explicit email to one of the female employees of Women’s College. This, however, was turned down by the govt investigating agencies to be a spam mail. But since then several attempts were made to use this incident to take stern legal action against him and also to terminate him. Dr Paul also narrated how several illegal committees were formed time and again to harass him. Overall, the representatives of civil society present during the open discussion on Thursday expressed solidarity with Dr Manoj Kumar Paul and praised him for being upright in front of all odds.