NEW DELHI: After over a year, when the academic council of Delhi University passed a motion to remove a chapter on Pakistan’s national poet Muhammad Iqbal from the political science syllabus, DU’s Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh categorically stated that the varsity would not teach Iqbal’s works in its courses.
The V-C said Hindutva icon Vinayak Damodar Savarkar would be taught, adding that DU would teach the works of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr B R Ambedkar, and Savarkar but not Iqbal, whom he charged with “initiating the partition of India in the run-up to 1947.”
During an event on Wednesday, the Vice Chancellor, Yogesh Singh, delivered a message on nationalism to the students. He urged them not to compromise on India’s unity and to stand together against any forces that seek to divide the communities.
He also said that students must learn and read more about Savarkar, Gandhi, Ambedkar, and other leaders who have actually sacrificed their lives fighting for the country’s independence.
Last year, while removing the chapter titled ‘’Thought’ from thecal thought’’ from the sixth-semester same paper, the DU had justified the decision to drop Iqbal’sIqbal’s work and life on the grounds that “he laid the foundation to partition” and should not be included in the syllabus.
However, several Political Science and History professors from DU claimed that Iqbal was never a threat to the national ideology and that removing his works from the syllabus after so many years was just a “political agenda.”
Born in 1877 in Sialkot in undivided India, the national poet of Pakistan had written the famous song ‘Saare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara’. Mr. Iqbal, also known as Allama Iqbal, is often credited with giving birth to the idea of Pakistan.