Delhi University News- Confusion at Delhi University exam

From - Zeenews

New Delhi: Confusion prevailed at examination centres of Delhi University on Wednesday following alleged discrepancies in the instructions of a qualifying paper. 

Delhi University abdicates its core duty by removing Ramanujan's essay

From- http://www.heraldscotland.com/

The brilliant scholar and poet A K Ramanujan begins his essay, Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation, with a story about Rama dropping his ring. In a bid to retrieve it, Hanuman descends to the netherworld, where, finally, the King of Spirits asks him to take the ring from a platter with thousands of rings on it - all belonging to Rama. 

The point of the story is the belief in many reincarnations of Rama, but it is also about the richness of multifarious narratives and traditions. The appalling decision of the Academic Council of Delhi University, made last month, to remove this essay by Ramanujan from an undergraduate course is a blow against that Indian richness and diversity. 

It is also dangerous, as it underlines a tendency to hegemonise through recourse or reference to violence. Some years ago the student wing of the BJP vandalised Delhi University's history department against this very essay. And the university Academic Council's decision, even by default, evokes just that sort of majoritarian hegemony that Hindutva politics envisages. 

The richness, even strength and durability, of India's culture lies in diversity, in the way many traditions and interpretations have coexisted, enriched each other through borrowings, adaptations and even contestations. The notion of erasing that and of making Indian culture something monolithic is at the heart of the Sangh Parivar's ideology. 

Great violence attends this project of homogenisation of cultural and national identity, which also means demonising and excluding those not fitting into the prescribed slot. 

If a university Academic Council almost unanimously rejects such an essay, it underlines the fact that those notions of hegemony have crept into institutions which should be at the forefront of upholding and furthering that richness of Indian culture, and the freedom to explore every nook and corner of its diversity. 

Targeting and seeking to exclude or ban works of scholarship or art, among other things, is a signpost to fascism. This trend needs to be combated and reversed.

Delhi University News- Left and Right battle it out over sanctity of Ramayan

An essay by one of India's best known scholars, A. K. Ramanujan is at the centre of the latest flashpoint in the historic battle between the Left and the Right.

The pro-Left academic community came out on the streets on Monday to protest the scrapping of Ramanujan's essay - Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five examples and Three thoughts on Translation - by the academic council of the Delhi University on October 9. While the right-wingers claim the essay is blasphemous, the academics say the move violates the freedom of speech. They described the attack on Ramanujan's essay on the various versions of Ramayan as acts of wanton philistinism.

Over 250 protesters, including both students and teachers, from the Delhi University gathered near the Vivekananda statue at the arts faculty and took out a protest march on the campus. The protesters were demanding that the college authorities must preserve students' fundamental rights and should not give in to pressure from political groups claiming 'hurt sentiments'.

"Can we allow technical inquiry to be replaced with assertion of faith?" asked the agitators. The participants included history teachers and students who said the decision by the academic council was "thoroughly discouraging to the spirit of freedom". The council had earlier, after going through an expert committee review, recommended that the essay be removed from the syllabus. The decision was contrary to the report of the expert committee, which ruled by majority that the controversial essay should be retained in the syllabus.

"Our academic council could have done better than banishing one of the finest commentary pieces on ancient epics," Mukul Mangalik, senior lecturer at Ramjas College, said.

"Several versions of the Ramayan have been written in India and in other south and east Asian countries as well. But this is a fact and it will not change, no matter how hurt someone is. You may be hurt but you cannot take away someone else's right to read or reprint it," Mangalik said.

THE demonstrators described the pressure on the varsity to remove the essay from the syllabus as "anti-democratic, anti-academic and illogical." The protest, said the marchers, was not about the particular essay but about the methods employed to remove it. "Even if the essay was not as good qualitatively , we would have still objected to the furtive manner in which it was removed," Mangalik said.

Historians, among the protesters, said the episode exposes the attack on the country's most prized asset, its diversity.

"For a country as diverse as India, such objections are bound to arise time and again. But it is the duty of our institutions to withstand such torrents. Democracy is the cornerstone of not only education but our nation as a whole," said Mushirul Hasan, a historian, and former vice-chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia.

Historian Aditya Mukherjee said: "Instead of cherishing and celebrating our diversity, we are succumbing to pressure that is bent on destroying it."

"We should be proud of our culture which has produced hundreds of versions of Ramayan, but instead we're entertaining philistinism which is bent on simplifying our literary and philosophical inquiries. Can the German history, for example, be taught without mentioning the holocaust?" Mukherjee argued. He said the manner in which the academic council had passed the resolution was disgraceful and not becoming of a senior academic council.

"The academic council remained open in the night when most of the people barring 25 had gone home and then they surreptitiously passed the nonagenda. This is totally undemocratic," Mukherjee said.

The protesters later submitted a memorandum to vice-chancellor Dinesh Singh. The memorandum made three points in favour of the essay. First, removal of the essay was contrary to the recommendation by the expert panel, second, the academic council disregarded the opinion of the department of history and third that the council ignored a letter from the Oxford University Press to D.N. Batra, the petitioner who had claimed that the essay was blasphemous, which made it obvious that communal forces have pressured the press not to sell the book.

In 2008, activists of the BJPbacked ABVP barged into the office of the then-head of department of History, Dr SZH Jafri and demanded that the essay be withdrawn. The ABVP members vandalised Jafri's office, claiming that some portions of the essay - such as a south Indian version of the epic that describes Sita as Ravana's daughter - were blasphemous.

Prompted by a Supreme Court decision on the matter, the academic council later referred the essay to an expert committee and brought it up for a decision whether to keep it in the syllabus, last week. Despite three of the four experts on the committee recommending that the university continue teaching the essay to history students, the council voted to drop it from the syllabus. Out of 120 members on the council, only nine voted against the decision.

Delhi University News- Delhi University in row over Ramayana epic essay

Delhi University News Effigies of Ravana are burnt across India during the annual Dussehra festival A row has broken out in the Indian capital over whether Delhi university should teach a controversial essay about the Hindu epic, the Ramayana. 

The essay by the well-known scholar AK Ramanujan was dropped from the history syllabus earlier this week after protests from Hindu hardline groups. 

The article describes 300 different retellings of the epic story found in India and other Asian countries. 

Protesters say the versions recounted in the essay offend Hindu beliefs. 

Entitled "Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation", the essay has been part of the university's history course since 2006. 

Hindu groups have protested against its inclusion since 2008. 

Following an order from the Supreme Court, an expert committee was formed to look into the issue. 

Last week, three of the four committee members recommended that the essay should remain part of the syllabus. 

Nevertheless, the university's academic council [which decides the syllabus] voted to drop the essay from the syllabus earlier this week. 

The university's history department has now said it wants the essay to be restored to the syllabus arguing that the university is compromising intellectual freedom because of political pressure 

"We find it very unfortunate that a course that was included and passed by the history department... has been dropped," Mail Today newspaper quoted Professor Sunil Kumar as saying. 

"The department has prepared a letter informing the council about its position and also asked the council to reconsider its decision," he added. 

Critics of the essay argue that it refers to versions of the Ramayana which claim that Lord Ram and Sita were siblings and that the 10-headed demon king Ravana was Sita's father. 

In the most popular version of Ramayana, written by the Hindu sage Valmiki, Ram and Sita were married and are held up as an ideal couple. Ravana, it says, desired Sita for himself, kidnapped her and held her hostage until Ram rescued her. 

Effigies of Ravana are burned across India during the annual Dussehra festival. 

Delhi University Teachers are Planning to Stage a demonstration on North Campus

TOI News - Delhi University teachers are planning to stage a demonstration on North Campus on Monday to demand the reintroduction of A K Ramanujan's essay 'Three Hundred Ramayanas' from the concurrent history course. They have also started an online petition to garner support to their protest. 

The teachers are now drawing an action plan to intensify their agitation against the removal of the essay by the Academic Council of DU on October 9, 2011. While history teachers of three colleges - Lady Shri Ram, Sri Venkateswara and Rajdhani - condemned the removal of the essay from the syllabus, teachers of the course in other colleges are expected to join the protest on Monday. The teachers will also pass a resolution demanding reintroduction of the essay. 

Teachers in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Jamia Millia Islamia and Jadavpur University have also pledged their support to the Delhi University teachers. 

The online petition, which was launched on Friday, has already started gaining momentum with over 195 signatures being signed till the filing of this report.