It is final now. A. K. Ramanujan's celebrated essay on the Ramayana will never feature in the history syllabus of Delhi University. The Academic Council of the university which met for several hours on Tuesday confirmed the minutes of its October meeting, making the ban complete and leaving no room for dissent.
“It is highly unfortunate. When we dissented they told us we can requisition another meeting if we wanted to for revisiting the issue, but the discussion of this meeting was limited, it was just to confirm the previous meetings minutes,” said Academic Council member Sheo Dutt, one of the nine members who had opposed the initial ban in October.
“The dissenting members pleaded that the reactions and arguments of the other academic institutions in the country and beyond condemning the initial ban should be taken into consideration. In fact, our members from the Democratic Teachers' Front demanded that at least their dissent be recorded but it was not,” said DTF member Abha Dev Habib, adding that the request for the dissent to be recorded was rejected on “technical grounds”.
The ban on the essay has become a source of embarrassment for the teaching fraternity in the university since it was perceived that the Academic Council, the highest decision making body of Delhi University, gave into pressure from Right-wing groups which demanded the withdrawal on the grounds of hurt religious sentiments.
“The university cited copyright reasons for not bringing out the essay, then Oxford University Press said they were republishing the essay but the university remained silent. Eminent scholars have written to the university but still there is no response…we have taken matters into our own hands and have started distributing copies of the essay during out protests,” said Robert Rahman of the Students' Federation of India which carried out a protest march from the Arts Faculty building to the Vice-Chancellor's office when the meeting was in progress.
The initial ban was followed by protests and special meetings, readings and discussions on the essay, invariably familiarising more people with the contents of the essay.
