JNU Row: Univ asks Professor Amita Singh to clarify alleged remarks against Dalit and Muslims

JNU has asked Professor Amita Singh who heads the varsity's Centre of Law and Governance to clarify her alleged remarks calling Dalits and Muslim teachers "anti-national" after the National Commission for Scheduled Caste sent a show-cause notice to the university. Singh had made the alleged comments in an interview to a web portal. "I have been asked by the university to send my clarification till tomorrow," Singh said during a press conference.

Maintaining that she has been quoted out of context in the interview, Singh came down heavily on a section of teachers alleging that they have been supporting the "anti-national" activities on campus. The NCSC had on March 8 sent a letter sent to JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar asking him to respond with action taken against the said professor. A communication was also sent to Delhi Police Commissioner urging him to register a criminal complaint.

On being asked "how many teachers and students in JNU are anti-national" in her interview to the website, the professor had said, "Teachers are hardly 10 but they portray as if everybody is with them. You think a teacher in an institution like JNU would be so stupid as to back anti-national slogans? These are just five or six persons and they are Dalits and Muslims. They have their grudges." The faculty member talks about "anti-national" activities in JNU, the family background of students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar and another student Umar Khalid.

The teacher had also alleged about foreign funding to anti-nationals while claiming that Bijnore, from where one of the arrested JNU student hails, is a "den of terrorism and Islamic State." According to the professor, one student still in judicial custody believes in "strong Kashmiriyat". Asked whether she stands by her comments in the interview, the professor said, "I mean it when I said those who are from Bijnore are like Umar Khalid".

"I have called 8-10 teachers of the university as anti-nationals...there is an year-old 400 pages report compiled by university teachers, which also has pictures of some professors with Hafiz Sayeed. "Our job as teachers is to guide the students when they are on wrong track, here few teachers mislead them for their own political gains," she said at the press conference.