Delhi University Professors P.K. Vijayan, Rakesh Ranjan to be interrogated by NIA

Witchhunt of Professors and intellectuals continues. Both Vijayan and Ranjan have made important intellectual contributions to anti-caste and democratic thought.

Delhi university

P.K. Vijayan and Rakesh Ranjan were summoned for interrogation by the NIA in connection to the Bhima Koregaon case. The summon, which was dated August 13, has asked him to appear at the NIA headquarters in New Delhi on August 14. Vijayan and Ranjan are both professors at Delhi University and have been teaching for years. They have made important intellectual contributions to anti-caste and democratic thought.

Vijayan is an assistant professor of English at Hindu College at Delhi University and has been known to be an important anti-caste and radical voice in the country. Rakesh Ranjan is a professor at SRCC. They are some of the many activists, academics, intellectuals, lawyers, and poets, whom the State has been attempting to frame for the Bhima Koregaon violence. While many of them have been in prison for two years now, the State is now interrogating a new round of dissenters. Recently, Father Stan Swamy, a human rights activist, was also interrogated in the same case. The actual inciters of violence, proven to be Milind Ekbote and Sambhaji Bhide, both associated with right-wing Hindu parties, remain free and unharmed. 

Vijayan has been teaching at the university for 25 years now and is an author of the book Gender and Hindu Nationalism: Understanding Masculine Hegemony. He has also written against privatization of public education, attacks on constitutional social justice norms, saffronisation of the curriculum by the RSS-BJP regime, and criminalization of political opposition. He was reportedly one of those who helped the students who were protesting for Hany Babu’s release when they had been detained by Delhi Police. Hany Babu, also a professor at Delhi University, and an important anti-caste intellectual, has recently been arrested in the same case

Ranjan has been vocal about the democratic rights of students, teachers, and workers. The prestigious award of ‘Distinguished Teacher’ was conferred upon him in 2007 by the President of India. 

The targeting and intimidation of professors known to teach important critical ideas to students are being targeted not only in order to create an atmosphere of fear for dissenters but to also slowly dilute the role of public university students in anti-fascist politics.

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March 2024
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