A.K. Ramanujan, while referring to the diversity and apparently contradictory element of unity in the Indian traditions, refers to an Irish joke about whether to classify trousers as singular or plural: singular from the top, plural from the bottom.1 A Concurrent Discipline Course in the University of Delhi for Second Year Honours students not doing History was introduced in 2005 on ‘Culture in India—Ancient’, and had sought to very sensitively...
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Let a Thousand Ramayanas Bloom by Bharati Jaganathan
The arbitrary deletion of A.K. Ramanujan’s ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation’ from the syllabus of a concurrent course taught by the History Department by the Academic Council of the University of Delhi has understandably sparked off a major debate. The prehistory of this step is to be traced to early 2008 when ABVP activists attacked and vandalised the office of the History Department in the...
More »Anti-Muslim article: Harvard removes Swamy-taught courses
-The Indian Express Harvard University has decided to remove courses taught by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy at its annual summer school session, terming his views as "reprehensible" in a controversial piece he wrote on Islamic terrorism in India. At a meeting of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, faculty members voted with an "overwhelming majority" to remove two economics courses – 'Quantitative Methods in Economics and Business' and 'Economic Development in...
More »Indifferent At Their Plight
-EPW Will the blatant discrimination against Muslims in the administration of justice ever end? The word secular was inserted into the Preamble of the Indian Constitution by the 42nd amendment in 1976; later on, the Supreme Court, in S R Bommai vs Union of India, held (in 1994) that secularism was an integral part of the basic structure of the Constitution. And yet, it has been a long time coming – Indian...
More »Ramanujan essay dropped to save PM another headache? by Neha Pushkarna
October 9 was a Sunday. An unusual day to call an emergency meeting of Delhi University's academic council. The main agenda was fairly routine stuff: approval of certain courses. However, tucked away as supplementary agenda was a proposal to do away with A K Ramanujan's essay, 'Three Hundred Ramayanas' from the history course - a proposal that was passed, triggering one of the fiercest debates in recent times in the academic...
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