Professor Makarand Paranjape asserted that it was important for JNU students to study and not do politics or they will be "neither here nor there"..
The February 9 event in support of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was carried out under a false pretext, according to a professor at the university.
"It was done on a false pretext. People who wanted to hold that event said they would conduct a poetry reading and that there would be seven people. It was called 'A Country Without a Post Office'. Instead it became a
commemoration for Afzal Guru. So it was done on the false pretext," Makarand Paranjape, a member of JNU Teachers' Association (JNUTA), said.
He was speaking at a session titled, "Freedom of Expression" organised by Sahitya Akademi as part of its annual national seminar.
Mr Paranjape was critical of the lack of action against the organisers on the part of the university over the use of such "subterfuge" and expressed surprise at the condemnation of the arrest of JNU Students' Union President
Kanhaiya Kumar.
"I am a member of JNUTA. No resolution was passed condemning that misuse, that subterfuge which was used but there was a condemnation of the arrest of a student? I am also very regretful that happened," he said.
He also questioned the absence of protests in JNU during the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from their homes and the recent lynching of a
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak in Kerala."Whether you accept capital punishment or not is a different issue. You are using the ideas of democracy and dissent to justify the commemoration of those who want to destroy the Indian democracy. So are we trying to say that when we do not 'tolerate' the commemoration, the deification of a person such as Afzal Guru,
we are being intolerant?"
Mr Paranjape asserted that it was important for the students at JNU, which is considered an institution of
"national integration", to study and not do politics or they will be "neither here nor there".
"I tell my students, 'have you come to JNU to do politics or to study because in the end you will be neither here nor there. The cadres will be picked up and patronised but what about the majority of you from the middle and lower middle class who have to earn a living?"
He claimed that most students spend four to five years in the university but don't attend classes because "attendance is not compulsory", and by the time the course ends they "are incompetent to face the world because they don't have any skills".
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