Mamata Banerjee to deliver lecture at Oxford University in June
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be going to Oxford University in June to deliver a lecture. She announced this on Monday at the inauguration of a school in Kolkata.
“I have decided to go as it is a university programme and I do not want to ignore it,” she said.
She was invited to give the lecture by the university’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor Jonathan Michie at the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) last November, where he made the announcement from the podium.
“We have invited her to deliver a lecture at our university and speak about her struggles and achievements. We are moved by her reflection on life and her views and policies on anti-racism and communal harmony. We have a strong Indian presence in our college. We want her to focus on anti-racism and women’s empowerment. The message will be taken well by our students and faculty,” Michie had told a media outlet later that day.
Jonathan Michie is also the president of Kellogg College, Oxford University, and Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange there.
It should be noted that Mamata Banerjee had been invited to Oxford University previously as well—by the Oxford Union Debating Society in December 2020 to address The Oxford Union Debate, where she would have been the first Indian woman chief minister to address the prestigious event—but could not as the event was deferred at the last moment, under “some pressure from the top” (implying the BJP government at the Centre), alleged Trinamool Congress.
A top party leader had said then that this was not surprising as another lecture by her—at the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago in 2018—had been cancelled after the event was called off.
