The All India Students' Association has called for a protest march to condemn the recent syllabi debacle at the Delhi University. The march will commence from the Arts Faculty of DU at 1 pm on July 23. The ABVP said it is unfortunate that student organisations are opposing their stand for inclusion.
Calling it an attempt to save academic freedom and a protest against the alleged interference in DU syllabus, AISA President Kawalpreet Kaur said, "We strongly condemn the DU administration's action of encouraging ABVP's members to threaten the professors of English and History department and to disrupt the earlier held Academic Council meeting. Syllabus making is an independent academic exercise which requires deep engagement with the subject and involves wider consultation with all teaching members of the subject. The English department's newly proposed syllabus was designed by the joint efforts of over 120 faculty members in DU. The faculty members even agreed and proposed revised syllabus many times before the Academic Council and the Executive Council of Delhi University but the Vice-Chancellor, acting under the pressure of the RSS backed teacher's wing and student's wing, has sent the revised syllabus back."
The ABVP State Secretary, Siddharth Yadav, said that their Satyagraha was for student representation in the Academic Council and it is unfortunate that student organisations are opposing the same EC's verdict that accepted all their demands. "They have their right to dissent. But they must know which side they are standing on. Dalit writers have been removed from Hindi novels, Babasaheb from Dalit Chintan, and here they are opposing our stand for inclusion. They can cry as much as they want but if the students read of Maoism, they ought to know the true colours of violence by the left ideology," he said.
The AISA added that the attitude of the DU administration of reportedly acting at the behest of RSS speaks of the increasing control of these bodies in independent academic institutions. "For any university to survive, it is pertinent that academic freedom is given to its professors and critical thinking is developed in students," Kawalpreet added.
The Students' Federation of India, in a statement, said that the right-wing communal forces working amongst the teacher and student community of the University of Delhi are in a fit of rage over the progressive content taught in some UG courses in the University, "The RSS, through their frontal organisations like the ABVP and the NDTF, have been attempting to tamper with the education curriculums. The hue and cry created over Ramanujan’s 300 Ramayanas and attempts by Gujarat government to re-write the history of the Indian Independence movement based on lies propagated by the Sangh are a few examples. What has changed, however, since the Modi government has assumed power in the centre is that such attempts to destroy curriculums promoting critical ability and scientific temper and replacing it with RSS propaganda have got institutional backing."
