A New York-based professor, who recently came to the University of Hyderabad (UoH) to deliver lectures, is learnt to have faced the ire of the varsity authorities for participating and speaking in the meeting organised by the striking student protesters.
Immanuel Ness, Professor at University of New York (Brooklyn College), was said to have been reprimanded by a senior faculty member of the UoH’s Department of Political Science. “For pledging solidarity to protesting students, I was called a Stalinist,” Prof.Ness, who is currently in New York, told The Hindu .
“I was not informed of the protests on UoH campus. And once I reached UoH, I only wanted to address the protesters as I was in support of their political movement. But those who invited me were not very pleased with the idea and they turned hostile,” he said.
While he was not reimbursed the travel expenses, what appalled Prof. Ness was the complaint against him for speaking in favour of student outfits on campus.
“Some inflammatory and derogatory comments were made against the protesting student outfits ,” Prof.Ness said. When contacted for a comment about the Political Science Department’s stand on the matter, Arun Patnaik, a senior professor of the department, said there was no collective stand.
“I was one among the people who were trying to open a dialogue between the two warring groups of students before Rohith Vemula’s death,” he said.
