The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has seemingly scrapped its Master of Arts course in Hindi Translation (MA Hindi Translation) course for the academic year 2024-25.
One look at the university’s academic prospectus for this year shows that the seat matrix of the course is reduced to a shocking number — zero, across all categories.
According to a report by The Telegraph, this development comes as the current government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), recommends establishing “high-quality departments for translation studies” under the National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP 2020).
As a result, the abrupt closure of the MA Hindi Translation, which started just two years ago in the 2022-23 academic year under the Centre for Indian Languages, School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, came across as an odd and surprising development.
Therefore, EdexLive attempted to contact the administration of the university, as well as the Centre and School to understand what was really happening.
University mum about the issue
However, neither the administration nor the members of the Centre, School, or faculty of the course were willing to speak about the situation on record.
When contacted about the seeming cancellation of the course, Vice-Chancellor Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit asked us to contact the Centre and School of the course. She further added that “no such order was issued” by her office.
Moreover, the Centre for Indian Languages asked us to contact the faculty of the course, who, in turn, claimed that this matter, being one of policy, was not in their hands. They also asked us to contact the Director of Admissions of the University.
(EdexLive reached out to the Director and Deputy Registrar of Admissions seeking comments on the issue. This copy will be updated when they respond.)
Insufficient faculty for the course, allege students and insiders
Finally, Siddharth Singh, a PhD scholar of Hindi Translation agreed to spill the beans on the plausible reasons why the MA Hindi Translation course was not accepting students this academic year.
He says, “Ever since this course was started, only two full-time faculty members were teaching two batches in the course.”
Ideally, he adds, the course should employ seven faculty members — one professor, two associate professors, and three assistant professors — which has been left long overdue by JNU’s administration.
“To combat this shortage of staff, there were many instances where we PhD scholars had to take classes for MA students,” he recalled.
Attesting to this, sources from the Centre for Indian Languages reveal that multiple requests to the JNU administration and the University Grants Commission (UGC) to hire more full-time faculty members for the course received no responses.
According to the UGC regulations of 2018, full-time teaching faculty members must have a workload of “not less than 40 hours a week for thirty working weeks in an academic year”.
Further, as a course with 64 credits, students must also spend 40 hours of face-to-face contact per paper.
To make sure that students meet their required credits, the two faculty members employed in the course are stretching themselves thin, the sources say.
“This is the first time in the history of JNU that a course is being rolled back after introduction,” says Siddhanth.
