Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Professor Nivedita Menon on Friday said that she had to pull out of the Kappen Memorial Lecture in Bengaluru that she had to deliver on November 30 after the JNU administration decided not to process any application of the faculty — from leave to medical bills — unless they comply with an order to sign a register for attendance every day.
In a letter to the organisers, Prof. Menon wrote, “As we know the current regime since 2014 has sharply targeted universities as spaces that produce critical thinking. In JNU, the initial attack in 2016 was on grounds of supposed anti-nationalism, but since then the administration has used innumerable bureaucratic methods to sabotage and destroy every democratic decision-making process, and all possibility of serious academic work, both of which JNU was noted for.”
The professor also said that the decision that students, including research scholars, should mark attendance every day was challenged in court and is sub judice, during which period the JNU administration is prohibited to coerce students for attendance.
Faculty opposes order
“JNU faculty have refused to sign attendance, as we continue to teach and work as we always have, with sincerity and commitment, and will not be coerced into the petty bureaucratic conception of teaching and learning being forced upon us,” she wrote.
Prof. Menon also wrote in the letter that “commitment of the large majority of the people of our country to democracy, secularism and social justice will triumph over the minority that hold us hostage today”.