Ayesha Kidwai, a faculty member at the Centre of Linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University wrote about the controversy regarding Romila Thapar's resume and said every argument in the release was 'essentially whataboutery'. She even ridiculed the comparison of the administration to policies existing at MIT and Princeton.
The professor pointed out three points in the release so 'that the world can see and sympathise with what we (the JNU professors) deal with'. Kidwai said that while the Ordinance 32 is laid out, the date on which it was passed was omitted out allegedly since the JNU VC only passed it this last year.
She said that the administration had a whole 'passive-aggressive' take on the whole issue, "The administration has packed in every contradictory things one can say: (defensively) we were asking for her willingness to continue and not to remove her; (aggressively) no actually, we were asking for her CV to review it; (belligerently) dammit, we have a right to remove her because MIT and Princeton can as well."
The professor said that the administration's decision to bring comparison between MIT and Princeton rules does not make sense because it is not got anything in connection with what the JNU administration is stating. While speaking about the way that the professor emeritus must report to activities on campus it does not say anything about a review when the professor turns 75, "MIT says if the professor emeritus works from the institute they must report their annual activities, and Princeton says if the emeritus falls off the ethical standards of research, then the designation may be rescinded. Neither says anything about review at 75, or making way for potential candidates, or any of the other crap the JNU ordinance says."
Kidwai called the release the latest among many that 'fails logic'. "Every argument essentially whataboutery. And when we laugh bitterly at it all, they get incensed. Prof. Thapar just showed them the mirror to their idiocy, so now a period of intense mad-doggism (in Hindi, baukhlaahat) is bound to follow," she wrote.
