CU changes probe panel chairman

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 26

In the eye of storm for initiating an inquiry against two teachers for coordinating a play on Mahasweta Devi’s short story ‘Draupadi’ allegedly under pressure from the ABVP, the state’s Central University in Mahndragarh has now changed the chairman of the inquiry committee.

“I find this as an ominous development in the university that in a sudden and alarming fashion, two senior academic members of the committee, including its chairman, have been replaced,” said Sachin Nirmala Narayanan, a professor of English in Delhi University’s Dayal Singh College.

He said that it seemed that Prof Bhim S Dahiya (chairman) and Prof Malashri Lal had been replaced by two other academics whose names the university officials refused to share or confirm.

“The committee abruptly summoned three teachers of the English Department today and continued the questioning of the teachers in an antagonistic way. The manner in which the authorities had initiated this frivolous inquiry in direct response to the mala fide and manipulative campaign undertaken by the ABVP and RSS affiliates, had come under criticism from all academic quarters right from the beginning,” Narayanan said.

While Vice-Chancellor RC Kuhad disconnected call made on his mobile phone, Registrar Ram Dutt said only the chairman of the committee had been replaced with Prof Sukhdev Kaushik of Osmania University, since the former was indisposed.

He said under its new chairman, the inquiry committee had already held two meetings and it was expected to submit its report soon.

Meanwhile, more than 50 teachers from US and Indian universities have written to Vice-Chancellor Kuhad expressing need for the campus to be fostered as a place where difficult questions can be debated in a spirit of intellectual openness and without fear of censure.

In a letter Gayatri Chakravorty, Akeel Bilgrami, Gauri Vishwanathan and Pratha Chatterjee of Columbia University, New York, and several teachers from JNU, DU, University of Calcutta, University of Hyderabad and other prominent Indian universities said: “We strongly believe that it is both unjust and unwise to accuse intellectually responsible teachers of hurting the sentiments of some sections of opinion.”

In another development, students of the English Department of the Central University have expressed fear in their letter to the VC that the light of knowledge was being snuffed out by vested interests.

Meanwhile, activists of the ABVP and members of the Sainik Samman Samiti, who alleged that soldiers had been depicted as rapists in the play, continue to sit on dharna demanding sacking of the two teachers.