Next to the Takhat Harimandir Patnasaheb Gurudwara, the birthplace of the 10th Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh, is the Sri Guru Gobind Singh College.It’s the state’s only Sikh college, and one at the centre of a growing controversy. The International Sikh Forum, a registered body of Sikh intelligentsia, has written to the Minorities Commission asking that the Magadh-University affiliated college be handed over to the local Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (GPC).The forum has plans to improve the college that’s in a ‘‘state of neglect’’. It has emphasised a temple built in the campus flout’s the college’s character. The move comes as an 11-judge Supreme Court bench is hearing on the status of minority colleges.Of the total 2,000 students, only 10 to 15 attend classes regularly. ‘‘There are 100 lecturers and 116 non-teaching staff. But only 30 per cent turn up at college. The others sit at home and draw salaries,’’ he said. College records show in a span of three days, only 30 teachers turned up at college.‘‘The college gurudwara is no longer maintained,’’ says the forum’s letter written to the commission. ‘‘Instead a big temple is being constructed by non-Sikhs in the college. Though on the rolls there are more then 2,000 students, the attendance is hardly over 10.’’Dinesh Kumar, an intermediate first-year political science student, said: ‘‘This is a college in name. Nobody attends. Teachers come if they feel like it.’’ Kumar attends not more than two classes in a day.His friend Jitender Kumar, a history student, said: ‘‘We didn’t know when we got admitted that things were so bad. Now, we just want degrees.’’ According to him, lessons in Ancient History are yet to start.Though some intermediate students still attend classes, their BA counterparts have given up. ‘‘We gave a petition to the principal about teachers who sign the register and don’t teach. But nothing has changed,’’ a BA student said.The principal, however, denied the charge. He said attendance was low now because of holidays. ‘‘Most students are disinterested. Teachers do come regularly. They complain students don’t attend.’’According to him, like any other Bihar college, his college too is reeling under a funds crunch. Yet, it has managed to buy books worth Rs 2.5 lakh and is functioning like most others, he said.The buildings, however, don’t say much for the way the college is working. The administrative block, bought from a Nepal Maharaja in the 1960s, is about to crumble. Students and teachers have been warned against entering it.
