Member of Parliament (MP) and Delhi University (DU) Professor Manoj Jha, known for his fiery speeches in the Rajya Sabha, alleged on Wednesday, August 31, that he was scheduled to deliver a lecture at DU next week which now allegedly stands cancelled. The MP, as per a report in The New Indian Express, has called for a probe into the matter.
Jha had received an invite from DU's Centre for Professional Development in Higher Education (CPDHE) to deliver a virtual address for the college and university's teachers on September 4.
As per the letter issued by Geeta Singh, Director, CPDHE, was requested to be the resource person for a refresher course on social work and social sciences. But on Wednesday, another letter received by him stated that the lecture was cancelled due to "some unavoidable circumstance".
Manoj Jha comments
"I am the professor of that university. I got a letter on August 18 to take a lecture on September 4. And this morning, a letter came saying that your lecture has been cancelled. The programme has not been cancelled only my lecture is cancelled," said Jha.
"I demand to the government that this move of the CPDHE should be investigated. What's the reason that I can't give the lecture? Don't I have the right? This is my university. I teach here. I have studied here and I am teaching here. I can speak in Parliament, on the street, and write in newspapers. But I cannot address the teachers of my university. What is fear?" said Jha in a video message soon after receiving the letter.
"The teachers there wanted to hear me but it was unacceptable to you. You won't become Vishwaguru like this. I am hurt," he added.
DUTA reacts
Nandita Narain, Convenor, Democratic United Teachers Alliance (DUTA), stated, "The undignified manner in which the CPDHE of University of Delhi cancelled the invite to Prof Manoj Jha, Department of Social Work, University of Delhi, to be a resource person to address and engage in a discussion with teachers on 'Political Social Work: New Opportunity for Practice' for a course on Social Work and Social Sciences is not merely a disrespect for him or a complete disregard for the academia."
Narain continued, "It is one more instance of institutionalisation of an intolerant and bigoted culture in the University of Delhi. Such institutionalisation allows the director of CPDHE to excessively pack orientation/refresher/development programmes for teachers with resource persons and chief guests holding the ideological views of the ruling dispensation while excluding all contrarian views."
DUTA, in its statement against the incident, also mentioned that such exclusion is carried out by leaving out persons with contrarian views. It is a disgrace for an eminent institution and strikes at the very idea of a university,
