The Jawaharlal Nehru University has asked Professor Amita Singh, who heads the varsity’s Centre of law and Governance to clarify her alleged remarks calling Dalit and Muslim teachers “anti-national” after the National Commission for Scheduled Caste sent a show-cause notice to the university. Singh had made the alleged comments in an interview to a web portal.
Maintaining that she has been quoted out of context in the interview, Singh said, “Some of the teachers alleging that they have been supporting the “anti-national” activities on the campus.” The NCSC had on March 8 sent a letter sent to JNU Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar asking him to respond with action taken against the said professor. A communication was also sent to the Delhi Police Commissioner urging him to register a criminal complaint.
On being asked “how many teachers and students in JNU are anti-national” in her interview to the website, the professor had said, “Teachers are hardly 10 but they portray as if everybody is with them. You think a teacher in an institution like the JNU would be so stupid as to back anti-national slogansIJ These are just five or six persons and they are Dalits and Muslims. They have their grudges.”
The faculty member talks about “anti-national” activities in the JNU, the family background of students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar and another student Umar Khalid.
The teacher had also alleged about foreign funding to anti-nationals. Asked whether she stands by her comments in the interview, the professor said, “I mean it when I said those who are from Bijnore are like Umar Khalid”.