CHENNAI: The Department of Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Madras (UoM) has cancelled an endowment lecture scheduled for March 14, after its topic sparked widespread outrage on social media on Friday.
Earlier, Head of the department J Soundararajan had issued an invitation for the “Sir S Subramania Ayyar Endowment Lecture 2024-2025” to be delivered by K Siva Kumar, an engineer, on the topics 'How to spread Christianity in India' and 'Why need this margam. on March 14.
The invitation went viral on social media on Friday, with a section of users sharply criticising the topic choice. A few users on ‘X’ questioned the connections of an “overtly religious topic” with history or archaeology. Soon after, the department, in a letter dated March 7, announced the cancellation of the event due to “administrative reasons”.
University sources said registrar S Elumalai, who was seemingly unaware of the topic, called for the lecture’s immediate cancellation after witnessing the backlash. He sent a letter to the governor saying the department did not obtain his permission regarding the lecture topics. Despite TNIE’s repeated attempts, Soundararajan and Elumalai could not be contacted for comments.