JNU teachers' 'oust VC' demand get support from academics across globe

The JNU Teachers' Association on Thursday said it has received support of 250 senior academicians and various universities' administrators from different parts of the world to its demand for the ouster of JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar.

In a statement, the JNUTA said more than 250 academics and administrators of universities in the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Norway, France, Italy, Denmark, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, Chile, Mexico, Argentina Taiwan, Greece, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Brazil, Portugal and New Zealand have signed a statement calling for the immediate resignation by Kumar.

"They include the former Archbishop of Canterbury and current Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, Dr Rowan Williams; the President of the American Anthropological Association, Prof Akhil Gupta; USA's Association for Asian Studies president, Prof Prasenjit Duara; and Cambridge professors Dame Caroline Humphries and Sir Christopher Clark," JNUTA said in a statement.

The signatories stated that the January 5 incident in which an "armed and politically-motivated mob" was allowed to enter the JNU campus violates every norm of democracy, of academic freedom, of the protection of universities from arbitrary state power, and of the duty of university administrators to protect their students and faculty".

They also rued the JNU administrators' "failure" to call police to protect students and their act of "criminalising" peaceful failure of the protest by students, the JNUTA added.