NEW DELHI: A day after Delhi University added a chapter on Hindutva leader Veer Savarkar as an elective in the 5th semester in BA course, and removed Muhammad Iqbal from the syllabus, one of the students’ organizations protested on the campus demanding a rollback of the decision.
Meanwhile, the Political Science and History professors from DU believe that Iqbal was never a threat to the national ideology and removing it from the syllabus after so many years is just a political agenda.
NSUI staged a protest in front of the faculty of Arts, on Wednesday. Its president Neeraj Kundan, said, “It’s a shame that Delhi University has removed Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, the creator of the Constitution Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar ji and famous poet Iqbal Saheb who wrote Saare Jahan se acha from the syllabus and adding Savarkar, who apologised to the British.”
One of the retired History professors of Delhi University, Amar Farooqui said, “There may be ideas which we don’t like or do not endorse but we can’t just stop discussing them. Similarly, we may not like Ruso’s ideology but we can’t stop reading it. I believe that the pattern of changing syllabus these days can be related to the political agenda. I don’t see any academic consideration in it.”
Echoing the same opinion, DU’s Political Science professor Biswajit Mohanty said, “My analysis is that it was a part of a broad agenda. The chapter of Mohammad Iqbal did not fit into the narrative of the so-called new nationalists.”
“However Iqbal’s poetic value, multiplicity, social identity were all relevant for us and we could have retained it. He was not a threat to the national ideology. He is being read extensively otherwise and even in Punjabi literature, he has found a place,” he said.
He added, “The proposal of removing Iqbal was first sent to the standing committee, then it was forwarded to the academic council where it was approved in principle and now it has been sent to the College of Courses (COC) committee. It will likely be scrapped to satisfy the larger sentiments of the members who
vouched for it.”
He advocated Partition, says Vice Chancellor
Speaking to this newspaper, DU VC Yogesh Singh said, “The academic council decided to remove the chapter of Mohammad Iqbal because even though he wrote, ‘Saare Jahan se achcha….’ He never practiced that. He was one of the main proponents of Pakistan, the one who advocated the idea of Partition. Why should we promote the teachings of such people who led to the Partition?”
“Savarkar was a freedom fighter. He sacrificed a lot and suffered for all of us. He lived in Andaman and Nicobar and faced atrocities. After 75 years of Independence, we must give respect to him by including his teachings in paper of nationalism. Earlier the proposal was to remove Gandhi but the academic council did not approve it. Now the chapter on Hindutva leader Veer Savarkar as an elective in the fifth semester and the chapter on Mahatma Gandhi will be included in the seventh semester,” he added.