Academics express support for DU professor

Rakesh Ranjan questioned by NIA in Bhima-Koregaon violence case

Karnataka : Bengaluru : 23/07/2017 : Prof. Prabhat Patnaik one of the speaker at the concluding day of DR. Ambedkar International Conference -2017 at GKVK Auditorium in Bengaluru on July 23, 2017. Photo : V Sreenivasa Murthy.

Leading academics on Saturday issued a statement expressing solidarity with Delhi University professor Rakesh Ranjan, who was summoned and questioned by National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case on Friday. Another Delhi University professor P.K. Vijayan, was also questioned on Friday.

Signatories include professors from Delhi University, Jindal Global University, Ambedkar University, Presidency University, and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) such as Jayati Ghosh, Amit Bhaduri, and Prabhat Patnaik, among others.

The professors said they have known their “friend and colleague from his student days”. In the statement they have said, “After finishing his BA from Delhi’s Ramjas College, he pursued higher studies in JNU and completed MA and M.Phil in economics from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning. While pursuing his PhD on the agrarian transformation of Bihar, Rakesh took up the job of teaching economics in Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi.” The professors described Mr. Ranjan as an accomplished and popular teacher, who was always accessible to his students.

B.Line: Jayati Ghosh, in New Delhi, on Feb.14, 2014. Photo: Kamal Narang

“Rakesh was felicitated with the Distinguished Teacher Award by the President of India in 2009. As close friends and colleagues of Rakesh, we know that he has never been involved in any activity which can warrant an investigation by the NIA. It is by now clear that a number of individuals are being persecuted on patently false charges related to the Bhima-Koregaon incident,” the statement said.

The statement said they “strongly feel this cruel persecution of innocent persons should immediately end”. They added, “What shocks us is that someone like Rakesh Ranjan is also being trapped in the same witch-hunt. Not only is he a serious academic and teacher, but also a most generous soul incapable of involvement in any violence.”

The professors called upon the Union government to stop its “deliberate harassment of academics and activists, which is destroying our democracy, violating civil liberties and subverting the Constitutional order”. They also urged for no further action by any investigating agency against Mr. Ranjan with regard to the Bhima-Koregaon case.