ABVP members force the authorities to take action against Prof Seema Panwar of the government-funded Chaudhry Charan Singh University
Team Clarion
MEERUT – A female professor in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut has been barred for life from exam duties and other evaluation works for posing some questions related to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Prof Seema Panwar of the government-funded Chaudhry Charan Singh University faced the wrath of the institution on Monday after members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) protested against her and demanded strict action. Members of the ABVP, the student wing of the RSS, staged a rowdy protest at the campus on Saturday calling the questions “objectionable”.
According to a report in The Indian Express, the ABVP members objected to questions in the Political Science paper for second-year students. The paper had two multiple-choice questions (MCQs) linked to the RSS. Question No. 87 asked what led to the rise of the RSS, with one of the choices suggesting it was due to religious and caste-based politics. An answer to question No. 97 mentioned the RSS along with the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Naxalites.
Following the protest from the ABVP, the university Registrar, Dhirendra Kumar Verma, stated that the institution had decided to debar the professor for life from all examination and evaluation work after holding a meeting on the issue.
“The university never reviews the question papers set by selected experts of different fields because it is believed that he or she, being an expert of the subject, has set the question paper as per the established norms. Hence, there should not be any doubt on his or her vested interests,” Verma said.
Meanwhile, Prof Panwar has issued an apology stating that the questions were from the textbook and not out of the syllabus.
“I have been in the teaching profession for 25 years. None of the questions in the examination paper were out of the syllabus. The MCQs have options for the right and wrong answers…The book by M Lakshmikant is authorised in the CCSU curriculum in the Political Science stream and puts the RSS at the top of the religious pressure group. Hence, it was one of the choices,” Panwar said.
The ABVP claimed the questions had described the RSS as the reason for the emergence of religious and caste politics.
“Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has been an apolitical, social, cultural and dedicated organisation in the national interest on the basis of equality and national unity for the last 100 years,” the ABVP said.
The outfit said that the professor’s act was “anti-national” and demanded strict legal action by suspending the examiner who set the question paper in the “interest of students and the nation.”
A copy of the memorandum, shared by the ABVP’s Meerut wing, said, “The way Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has been added in the above question, it seems that the examiner who set the question paper, being afflicted with some anti-national ideology, has worked to tarnish the image of the Sangh among the students and create a wrong narrative, whereas doing so is not in the national interest.”
The university has faced criticism for taking action against the professor despite her committing no wrong. Prof Apoorvanand of Delhi University asked what was Prof Seema Panwar’s crime. “By punishing a professor for a question paper, we have as a nation let down our educators and our education system,” he said.
“It is unacceptable that the university has exposed the paper setter. Irresponsible and dangerous! We need to stand with Professor Seema Panwar,” he added in a tweet.
