SAVE DELHI UNIVERSITY! दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय को बचाओ!

PRESS RELEASE, 7 April 2013
SAVE Delhi University Campaign!

The Save DU campaign reached Dilli Haat in the evening of Sunday, April 7, 2013. The campaign in the form of placards, leaflets and dialogue with the visitors drew massive response. Over 700 persons signed the memorandum to the Prime Minister to Save Delhi University after being apprised of the specifics of the proposed four-year undergraduate degree course and the manner in which it is being sought to be introduced. Many volunteered to share the petition through their facebook and other online accounts with their families, friends and co-workers.

The Save DU campaign takes serious note of the incident in Shri Ram College of Commerce yesterday where a teacher was manhandled and evicted by bouncers at the behest of the VC for wishing to say something in a gathering for an academic conference, ironically titled “Transformational Leadership”. It condemns Prof. Dinesh Singh for this display of muscle power. Prof Dinesh Singh has shown once again that he believes neither in dialogue nor in the rule of law. It is unthinkable that an invitee to a college can get teachers thrown out in the presence of the college principal. There are civilized, academic and lawful ways to accommodate request for intervention made by a student or a teacher in an academic proceeding.

What Prof. Singh did yesterday was not an aberration, it smacked of the now familiar vengeance he expresses against anyone asking a question, expressing a different opinion, seeking justice or demanding rights. We are reminded of the merciless and inhuman treatment meted out to differently-abled students and teachers, deployment of bouncers to physically assault teachers gathered for a symbolic protest such as effigy burning, the deployment of bouncers at the meeting of English teachers convened to discuss semester syllabus and many other instances.

Prof. Singh’ conduct is contrary to accepted academic or even administrative behaviour. He is guilty of taking upon himself the authority to physically assault anywhere and anyone who displeases him. The university cannot be hostage to his paranoia. His continuation as the Vice-Chancellor would vitiate the academic environment beyond repair.

The Save DU Campaign calls upon students, teachers, karamcharis and others concerned with higher education to join a protest action at the Arts Faculty Gate at 2 pm on Tuesday, 9 April 2013.