Delhi University says no to ‘provocative’ content in curriculum

NEW DELHI: A day after the varsity’s academic council referred back the syllabus of four courses following protests by some panel members over them being “anti-RSS”, the Delhi University officials said no controversial or provocative content will be part of the DU curriculum.

The updated syllabus of the four departments, Sociology, Political Science, History and English, was referred back to them after protests from Professor Rasal Singh, a member of the academic council and the RSS-backed National Democratic Teachers Front (NDTF) had raised issue with the inclusion of text in the English syllabus which dealt with references to the Bajrang Dal and the RSS, which he said was being represented in a bad light.

The Students Federation of India (SFI) and Left students’ outfits protested against the ‘saffronisation’ of the DU curriculum. The right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) as well as a collective of Left-leaning student organisations held protests against the syllabus-revision exercises being carried out by the university.

Further, the Left-wing students alleged that the ABVP was being “intolerant” by opposing certain texts in the English syllabus and that critical thinking at the university needed to be kept alive by protecting universities and textbooks from “communal forces”.

The ABVP alleged that through the new syllabus young minds were being brainwashed. SFI claimed that over the last week, the right-wing communal forces, working amongst the teacher and student community of the varsity, was on a fit of rage over the progressive content taught in some undergraduate courses in the university that relates to a story offered in a paper in the B.A. Programme course, and two courses offered to students of English (Hons).