Bhopal: A group of students has urged Makhanlal Chaturvedi National Journalism University vice-chancellor Jagdish Upasne to restore a chapter on Nehru in syllabus. A students’ delegation had met V-C Upasne on December 27. They claimed that the V-C had assured of incorporating chapter on Nehru in syllabus once again. However, Upasne had to resign few days later.
“A chapter on ‘Nehru and his socialism’ chapter was removed under political pressure of the government of the day. Nehru was the first Prime Minister of our country besides being a great freedom fighter,” said Sudhir Tiwari, member of the delegation that submitted the memorandum to VC Upasne on December 27. The administration at that time took a wrong decision and it should be corrected immediately, he added.
The university came into limelight a few days ago following reports of VC Jagdish Upasne’s resignation. A few students also submitted a memorandum to CM demanding that Upasne’s resignation be rejected and a probe into the tenure of former V-C. During a review meeting in March 2017, the then vice-chancellor BK Kuthiala had replaced chapter on ‘Nehru and his socialism’ from PG course in Mass Communication fourth semester syllabus with one on Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya.
The review committee had also decided to incorporate chapters on Swami Vivekanand, Maharishi Arvind, Bhimrao Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia. The decision to exclude Nehru came in for condemnation from all quarters along with the decision to introduce chapters on social stratification, positive and negative discrimination trends in communalism, patriarchy and male domination besides including chapters like poverty and black money, male-female relationship etc.
Other theories propagated by University that earned media headlines included promoting Narada as first journalist (Adi-patrakar) and Sanjay as first TV reporter. Narada finds mention in Indra Purana while Sanjay was a character in Mahabharata. Despite being blind, he gave live commentary of battle scenes to King Dhrithrashtra. In a seminar during his tenure, the then V-C Kuthiala had even asked participants to learn investigative journalism from Narada.