It was not very long ago that the JNU administration asked eminent historian Romila Thapar to send her CV in order to review her Emerita position. Recently, renowned economist Amit Bhaduri has given up his Professor Emeritus position in protest against the situation on campus under the current V-C M Jagadesh Kumar. This administration had already locked his office along with that of Professor Prabhat Patnaik and several others.
In a scathing letter addressed to the V-C, Professor Amit Bhaduri has strongly criticized the latter’s current handling of affairs at JNU. He writes that he has been witnessing with extreme disgust the steady deterioration and intellectual disintegration of the University under the V-C. The many decades he spent at the University were undoubtedly marked by student unrest, but this incompetence and throttling of the lively atmosphere on campus were never seen before. He further accuses the V-C of imposing his narrow-minded world-view on students. He writes that returning this honour was the only mode of protest through which he could register his deep concern at Kumar’s leadership which is leading to its systematic disintegration. “It pains me, but I feel it would be immoral on my part without registering my protest to remain a silent observer in this larger, sinister scheme of throttling dissent which is unfolding now at the University” writes an obviously anguished ProfessorAmit Bhaduri.
Professor Amit Bhaduri joined the University as faculty in 1973. He was one of the founding members of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, along with professors Krishna Bharadwaj, Anjan Mukherjee, Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, and Sunanda Sen.
