New Delhi, July 23 Various Delhi University (DU) student unions, including the All India Students Association (AISA) and the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), today held a protest against the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). They staged a demonstration at arts faculty in North Campus of the Delhi University against ABVP’s growing pressure tactics and intolerance aimed at intimidating DU teachers. They condemned the DU administration’s action of encouraging ABVP members to threaten professors of english and history departments and disrupting the earlier held Academic Council meeting. “We are pained to see the attack on academic freedom in our university. We strongly condemn the obstruction and interference of ABVP in DU’s syllabus-making process,” said the AISA president. Syllabus making was an independent academic exercise which required deep engagement with the subject and involved wider consultation with all teaching members of the subject, they said. Newly proposed syllabus of English department was designed by over 120 faculty members in the DU. The faculty members even agreed and proposed revised syllabus many times before the Academic Council and Executive Council of Delhi University, but the Vice-Chancellor, acting under the pressure of the RSS-backed teachers’ wing and students’ wing, sent the revised syllabus back, said a member of AISA. In the Academic Council meeting held on July 15 and 16, the members were intimidated by ABVP members regarding the change in DU syllabus. The members sought to be brought into submission when they proposed changes, incorporations and papers in DU undergraduate syllabus. They alleged that the DU administration failed to ensure that members were provided a safe environment to discuss and pass the changes and papers in the council. Also, the revised syllabi were sent back to the respective departments under pressure from RSS-backed teachers’ group and ABVP which was already created by collective efforts of the teachers of these departments, said Delhi State Committee Member, Krantikari Yuva Sangathan.

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