Protests force course ‘correction’ in Delhi University

NEW DELHI: The English department of Delhi University announced on Wednesday that it would remove and modify all such topics from its syllabus as are considered “objectionable”. The opposition of certain teacher groups and disruption of Tuesday’s Academic Council meeting by the RSS-affiliated ABVP caused four of the 54 undergraduate course syllabi — English, history, political science and sociology — to be sent back to their respective departments for reconsideration.While the history department has stated it will make changes as per the suggestion of its members, the political science department has said it will consider modifying the syllabus.

It was Rasal Singh, a Hindi professor in Kirori Mal College and member of the National Democratic Teachers’ Front (NDTF), who had claimed during the Standing Committee on Academic Matters meeting that there was an attempt to show RSS and the Bajrang Dal in bad light with the English course story on the Gujarat riots titled ‘Maniben alias Bibijaan’ by Shilpa Paralkar. He had also questioned the inclusion of course material on caste and queerness, claiming these were against the Indian ethos.
“We don’t want a controversy. The English department does not want academic issues to become politicised,” said Raj Kumar, head of the English department, on Wednesday. He said that the Gujarat riots story had been removed and the paper on ‘Literature in Caste’ had been changed from core to optional. The paper ‘Interrogating Queerness’ will be modified too. He added chapters on the Muzaffarnagar riots and lynching had been removed from the English journalism course.
In the history syllabus, the bones of contention were the inclusion on Naxalism in the ‘Democracy at Work’ paper, the sidelining of BR Ambedkar and Amir Khusro and the syllabus claim that there was "not enough material on Rajput history". Head of the history department Sunil Kumar told TOI, “We are not creating a syllabus to glorify a person, but to talk about historical processes and historical times. Those opposing our syllabus are demanding inclusion of certain things, but we only revised the 2016 bachelor’s in arts syllabus, made minor changes.”
Singh had objected to the inclusion of the Maoist movements in the paper on ‘Social Movements’ in political science. Sources in the political science department said they were “likely to make changes in the course and are considering the removal of Maoism from the course”.
In sociology, the accusation was that the syllabus did not cover “enough Indian movements and topics”. Singh claimed, “There is no mention of the Indian joint family system or environmental consciousness. There is a need for a nationalist and Indianised perspective, different from the left perspective taught in our universities for 70 years.” The department did not confirm it was considering the NDFT’s suggestions.
Student groups protested on Wednesday against ABVP disrupting the Academic Council meeting on Tuesday. “Right-wing communal forces are working in the teacher and student community against the progressive content taught in undergraduate courses in DU,” said SFI in a statement. ABVP state secretary countered that the course syllabi had an ‘anti-Hindu mindset’.