St Xavier’s University has been the first choice for a section of students because it upholds “the pluralistic realities of the nation”, vice-chancellor Father Felix Raj said at the third convocation of the institution on Saturday.
“During this short journey of four years, St Xavier’s University, Calcutta, has already emerged as the first option for many sincere students who aspire to get value-based education along with a hope to strengthen the pluralistic realities of the nation,” Father Felix Raj said at the programme, held on the New Town campus of the university.
Father Felix Raj told this newspaper that every graduating student walking through the portals of the institution must be armed with these pluralistic realities at a time when pluralism is under attack in India. “See what has happened in Karnataka. You are disallowing entry to girl students because they come wearing hijab (head scarf). But this is not being done to others who come wearing an amulet, turban. This otherisation of a community constitutes an assault on the ethos of pluralism. It was a time that we instilled these lessons more and more in our students so they could fight this fundamentalism.”
Altogether 627 students were awarded degrees. Industrialist Sanjiv Goenka was awarded DLitt (honoris causa).
