How MMS leak incident in Chandigarh University turned into an awful faux pas for city beautiful

Chandigarh, India’s first planned city and famously known as city beautiful, has been trending nationally for the last 24 hours as soon as the MMS leak episode inside Chandigarh University rocked the nation on Sunday.

But the problem is that the city and its main public university have nothing to do with the incident.

Many, who don't belong to this part of the world, knowingly or unknowingly associated Chandigarh University with the "main" Panjab University located in Chandigarh.

Several teachers in Panjab University confirmed to NewsDrum that they were getting frenzy calls from many of their known outside the state asking about the incident.

They said they had a tough time explaining that the episode occurred in a private university, which smartly borrowed Chandigarh's name but it has nothing to do with the city or Panjab University.

Surprisingly there was no objection from the Chandigarh administration, a centrally run union territory when the university came up in 2012 by the act of the Punjab state legislature.

This also compromised the tradition that a country has for long. It has been a well-established tradition to name public and famous universities after the city in which they are located.

This is why the first universities of colonial and Independent India were called Calcutta University, Bombay University, Madras University, Lucknow University, Delhi University, and so on.

Here, the private campus took the advantage to call itself after a city when neither its location nor governance or any other aspect is even remotely related to Chandigarh.

The campus of the private university is located 40 km in Gharuan village in Punjab's Kharar Tehsil in neighbouring Mohali district.

The promoters of the private university harped upon Chandigarh's goodwill because the city’s main Panjab University, which had its roots in undivided Punjab in Lahore, chose to stay with its original legacy rather than adopting the city's name after getting shifted to Chandigarh in 1956.

Dr. Jayanti Dutta, Deputy Director (Associate Professor) at Human Resource Development Centre, Panjab University, mentioned in her article in Economic and Political Weekly that this university established in Lahore in 1882, by the initiative and contribution of the public, was named not Lahore University, but Punjab University since it belonged to the whole of Punjab.

When the country was partitioned, Punjab University too got split into two; while the one in Lahore stayed, another one was established in Punjab, India.

She further wrote that in 1956, the university was officially relocated to a beautiful red sandstone campus in Chandigarh (a city that was built as Punjab’s capital to compensate for the loss of Lahore to Pakistan and later was made joint capital of Punjab and Haryana during Punjab’s reorganisation in 1966).

She added to distinguish between the two universities, the one in Lahore continued to be Punjab University, while the new one adopted a different spelling and became Panjab University—Punjab with an “a”—though, in other languages and scripts like Gurmukhi, there was no difference in spelling or pronunciation.

Impact of naming a private university after Chandigarh

Dr. Jayanti Dutta told NewsDrum that some time back, her friend's son took admission in Chandigarh University thinking that it was the main Panjab University of Chandigarh. Later, he had a tough time getting a refund for the fee he paid.

She further added people have even alleged that this confusion results in student poaching, leaving Panjab University at a disadvantage. “I think it is high time that this confusion must end,” she said.

Insiders at the Panjab University confirmed that many prospective students and their guardians from far and wide areas often get baffled by this unique conundrum.

For damage control, an alert and a disclaimer were also posted on the website of Panjab University stating that “it is not related at all to Chandigarh University, which is a private university and located in Distt Mohali, Punjab.”

Newsdrum checked that this disclaimer still exists on the Panjab University website but it is too below the main webpage that one finds it very hard to locate it.

Kanupriya, Former president of Panjab University Student Council, the main body representing students of the campus, told NewsDrum that several senators highlighted this issue during senate meetings in the past. But university authorities never took it seriously to take up the matter with the Chandigarh administration, Punjab government, or University Grant Commission to rectify it.

Referring to Chandigarh Member of Parliament Kirron Kher’s tweet that this episode has tarnished the image of Chandigarh, Kanupriya said that the issue is beyond the city’s image.

“The private university that calls itself Chandigarh University grew manifold in the past one decade using the name of Chandigarh at the cost of reputed public institutions like Panjab University,” she added.

Kanupriya also said this matter was not only about student poaching. The private university has been getting so many opportunities to host national conferences and seminars now. On the contrary, even the faculty of Panjab University are often introduced as Chandigarh University faculty when they attend conferences in other parts of India.

She said nowhere in the world, governments allow private institutions to use the city's name for commercial purposes. Here, this peculiarity is allowed brazenly and everyone is silent.

Meanwhile, Chandigarh University on its website, declared that “the name of the University is inspired by the City Beautiful, Chandigarh” because it epitome of cultural heritage and urbanization.

Panjab University Teachers Association president Mritunjay Kumar told NewsDrum that the Chandigarh administration must take cognisance of the matter.

Chandigarh Congress chief Harminder Singh Lucky told Newsdrum that the name of the private university should be Gharuan University where it is located, not Chandigarh University. “Local authorities must answer why it allowed it to happen in the first place, he added.

When contacted, Dharam Pal, Advisor to Chandigarh Administrator told NewsDrum, “I don’t think we can do something about it since this university is not situated within the city and out of our jurisdiction. The matter regarding the functionality of the university falls within the Punjab government.”