Ministry seeks university comments on anti-caste readings after PMO reference
The Department of Higher Education has asked central universities to furnish comments on courses that prescribe anti-caste writings, and to give enrolment figures for those courses. The email, sent on Sunday, cites a reference from the Prime Minister's Office to a post on X.
The email was sent at 12:32 pm on September 27 by Raj Kamal Kumar, an Assistant Section Officer in the department's Central Universities-I desk. He works under the Ministry of Education. It went to the registrars of ten central universities. Among them were the University of Hyderabad, Pondicherry University, Rajiv Gandhi University, Tezpur University, Maulana Azad National Urdu University and the English and Foreign Languages University. Four officials were copied on it. The subject line read, "Seeking comments on PMO Reference-reg."
"I am directed to refer to a communication received from the Prime Minister's Office regarding a recent tweet posted on the social media platform X (earlier Twitter)," the email said, carrying a link to the post. "All the Central Universities are requested to furnish comments on the above. Further, enrollment in the courses mentioned in the tweet may also be apprised to the Ministry." The email marked the matter urgent and asked for the information at the earliest.
The post it points to was published on September 26 by the handle @IamTheStory__, which calls itself The Story Teller. "THIS IS WHAT STUDENTS ARE BEING TAUGHT AT OUR UNIVERSITIES," it said. "From patriarchy to Caste Annihilation to Debrahmanising the history to Curse of Manu we are feeding young minds with a poison which our leftist cabal use a apprenticeship for grooming their future rank and file." The post carried an image of 35 prescribed readings against course names, and continued as a thread.
The table lists readings for courses at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, the Central University of Punjab and Asutosh College, which is affiliated to the University of Calcutta. The works named include B.R. Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste, Jyotirao Phule's Gulamgiri and Sharmila Rege's Against the Madness of Manu. Others are Gail Omvedt's Dalits and the Democratic Revolution, Braj Ranjan Mani's Debrahmanising History and Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd's Why I Am Not a Hindu.
The table also carries the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, both listed against a JNU course titled Ancient Indian Political Thought. Other names on it include E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar), R.S. Sharma, Savitribai Phule, Uma Chakravarti, Suvira Jaiswal, Aloka Parasher, Shireen Ratnagar, G. Aloysius and Anupama Rao. In the thread, the account said Pramod Ranjan's books on the Mahishasur narrative were on reading lists at Assam University. It also said a work by Bhikku Bodhanand is taught at Delhi University and JNU. The thread ended with the line, "We need to break this cycle." A copy of the email was accessed by The Wire.
