69th convocation: Gujarat Vidyapith does away with floor-seating for trustees and guests; Gov presides over function by sitting on chair

On Wednesday, he became the first from such office to address the convocation by sitting on a chair, along with office-bearers and trustees, who would earlier sit on mattresses laid on the stage.

At Gujarat Vidyapith, during the 69th convocation held on Wednesday. Express

Vice-Chancellor Bharat Joshi said that former President Pranab Mukherjee had presided over Gujarat Vidyapith’s 62nd convocation.

On the chairs replacing the floor-seating, Prof Joshi said, “Keeping in mind the age of several trustees… and also the protocol issued from the Governor office, the earlier seating arrangement with cotton and khadi mattresses was done away with this time.”

In a first, the university song – ‘Satya ahimsa na marg par makkam dagla bharti, Gujarat Vidyapith gamti, Gujarat Vidyapith gamti…’ (The Gujarat Vidyapith that firmly walks the path of truth and non-violence, is liked) – launched on February 28 to mark late Prime Minister and its former chancellor Morarji Desai’s birthday, was sung at the convocation.

Another departure was that not all the graduating students were called on stage to take their degrees, but only those who won medals. The remaining 953 students were handed out their degrees at the venue, Pranjivan Vidyarthi Bhavan, as they remained seated in rows on the floor.

This also led to a chaos as students scrambled to receive their degrees.

On one side of the main stage, students – many of them foreigners – sat spinning the charkha throughout the event.

A gallery was laid out on the campus to showcase glimpses of life at Gujarat Vidyapith to “outsiders”, designed on eight themes.

While one of the small stages placed around the campus showed a students’ daily schedule at Vidyapith, another themed on naturopathy demonstrated ‘prakrutik chikitsa’.

The others included a few students demonstrating yoga, performing garba, a student working on a handloom weaving machine, students from the microbiology and food and nutrition showing organic farming model and one exhibiting local millets.

The Governor has been aggressively campaigning for natural farming.

In his address, Devvrat said, “Mahatma Gandhi did not establish Gujarat Vidyapith to give students mere literacy or award degrees but they should be enlightened in thought, cultured, intellectually rich and inculcated with Indian values of life.”

He added that students should always follow the path of truth in life.

“Truth is the righteousness of life. Life should be based only on truth. Students should follow dharma – duty. Doing duty is religion itself. Today, there is a need to resolve with the thought of carrying forward Pujya Bapu’s ideals with the same zeal, dedication and hard work.”

Devvrat, as chancellor of the university, also launched its annual report and its revamped website.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Gujarat Vidyapith Registrar Nikhil Bhatt said: “We decided to go for themes, which we can call jhankiyan of Gujarat Vidyapith, its culture and what students do here. Also, there were seven to eight types of charkhas placed on one side at the main entrance of Pranjivan Vidyarthi Bhavan while on the other, different types of khadi were displayed.”