E-Paper
1,100 academics petition President, DU V-C to reinstate three women authors
While urging the university to revisit its decision, the signatories said the deleted texts were crucial for developing an understanding of the contours of society.
Over 1,100 academics and writers, including renowned authors Arundhati Roy, Perumal Murugan, Urvashi Butalia, Jayati Ghosh, Romila Thapar, and Uma Chakravarti, have petitioned the Delhi University vice-chancellor demanding the reinstatement of three women authors, Mahasweta Devi, Bama and Sukirtharani, in the undergraduate English syllabus after a group of DU teachers said the decision was taken without due consultations.
While urging the university to revisit its decision, the signatories said the deleted texts were crucial for developing an understanding of the contours of society. “The deleted texts are seminally important as they help realise the systemic oppressions of the Dalit and Adivasi communities that was prevalent, especially in gendered terms, and provide a better appreciation of our contemporary ethos and polity. Is this not something that the young men and women of independent India need to know and engage with? How else will a better and equal world be shaped?” stated the letter.
In a dissent note submitted by 15 academic council (AC) members last month, teachers said the oversight committee had approved changes to the syllabus without consulting the English department. These changes include the removal of Mahasweta Devi’s celebrated work Draupadi, works of two Dalit scholars Bama and Sukartharini and replacing them with texts from upper caste writer Ramabai, the removal of the “feminist interpretation of Ramayana”, and certain sections from the paper, “Interrogating queerness”.
A day after the dissent note, registrar Vikas Gupta had said, “The university subscribes to the idea that the literary content, forming a part of the text in a language course of study, should contain materials that do not hurt the sentiments of any individual and is inclusive in nature to portray a true picture of our society, both past and present.”
In the present petition, stressing upon the importance of the writings of the three authors the signatories said the texts allowed for continuous exploration and expansion of the rich terrain of Indian literature of marginalised lives. They said the removal was akin to the relegation of protesting women and the Adivasi to the peripheries of the syllabus of Delhi University, 2021.
“Decades after 1947, Indian literature in translation and in English were allowed entry into the colonised precinct of English syllabus of Delhi University. Is the process to be halted in terms of caste, class and gender contours of authors and the worlds that they bring alive? We urge the University to revisit its decision,” stated the petition.
Saswati Sengupta, associate professor, Department of English, Miranda House, one of the petitioners, said the petition was initiated a few days after the oversight committee dropped the three authors, mentioned above. She said the petition was tendered to the DU vice-vhancellor and to its visitor, the President of India.
“As women and teachers of English literature, four of us initiated the petition. We also teach in a college like Miranda House where the young women of the present and future India come to learn. It’s thus very important for us to have these voices in the syllabus,” said Sengupta, adding that the petition was carried forward by like-minded people who shared it around.
Sengupta and three other teachers from Miranda House, who drafted the petition, said the excision was a display in prejudice against literary representations of gendered, Dalit and Adivasi oppression and resistance in decolonized India.
“There is a pattern to the deliberate map of misreading underlying these excisions. The reasons cited are those of “hurt sentiment”, which has been supported by the right-wing teachers’ front of Delhi University,” the petitioner teachers said.
In an earlier statement, the National Democratic Teachers Front. a right-wing group, said adverse reactions to the removal were false propaganda. “Leftists have launched a false propaganda that many Dalit writers have been removed. No, all authors who were mentioned in the draft syllabus, as were formally approved in the original meeting of the AC, have been retained,” said the group.
Registrar Gupta on Monday said the changes were approved by the oversight committee. “The head of the committee has said that these texts were being taught for several years. They themselves decided to change the courses and the academic council already approved the changes. I don’t think there is any further scope for discussion on this matter,” said Gupta.
Ira Bhaskar, professor, JNU, one of the signatories, said it was important to play up voices from marginalized communities that highlight structures of oppression.
“These writers ( the removed authors) are extremely important since they make us aware of the unequal structure of our society. Voices of the marginalized, whether they are Dalit or women, need to be included in the syllabus to produce critical analytical minds,” said Bhaskar.
