KASARGOD: Central University of Kerala's decision to suspend Associate Professor Prasad Pannian from the headship of the Department of English and Comparative Literature for his Facebook post has evoked widespread condemnation on social media from students, teachers, writers, and intellectuals.
On Friday, Vice-Chancellor G Gopa Kumar removed Pannian from the headship for his post condemning his (VC's) decision to press criminal charge against a dalit research scholar, Ganhoti Nagaraju, who broke a pane of a fire extinguisher cabinet in the hostel.
The student was arrested later and spent five days in prison.
The VC signed the student's suspension order on Friday, and Pro-VC K Jayaprasad circulated it on WhatsApp groups and to the media, without serving it to Pannian.
Slamming the arrest of the student, Pannian wrote on August 11, "That an act of misdemeanor has been criminalised is deeply disturbing. As far as I understand, this is a minor offense that should have been settled on the campus itself. Mr Nagaraju lost his mother a few months ago and has been going through severe mental stress and agony... He has also not received his fellowship for quite some time. It is extremely saddening to know that our student is lying on the cold floor of the prison cell on charges of breaking a pane. I strongly condemn this arrest and appeal to the authorities to immediately secure the release of our student."
"By targetting Pannian, the university is challenging the sense of justice and democratic tradition of Kerala society," noted writer, Sunil P Elayidom in his Facebook post.
"The biggest irony of the suspension order was that it was signed by a well-known scholar and teacher of political science," wrote journalist Josy Joseph.
"We're indeed living in terrible times when democratic and academic values are pushed aside in favour of obedience and conformity," he added.
Left intellectual, Anil Chelembra observed that those who are against the views of the 'authorities' were being branded as 'enemies of the university'.
Students to launch agitation
Accusing the university of curtailing dissent, students have called for an all-party meeting to discuss the future course of action on Sunday evening.
"The suspension of Pannian comes two days after the VC expelled Akhil Thazhath, a second-year post-graduate student of International Relations and Politics for a critical Facebook post.
Earlier, the VC had suspended a linguistics student, Annapoorni Venkataraman also, leading to a student protest. The agitating students were not given admission this academic year," alleged students.