Leading World Scholars Rally to JNU Professor’s Defence
Vicious Campaign
against Feminist Scholar
We, the undersigned,
wish to express our shock and indignation at the vicious right wing media
campaign conducted over the past few days against well-known feminist scholar
and Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Nivedita Menon.
This media campaign
mischievously decontextualises her lecture at the public teach-in programme in
JNU with the use of selective clips and inflammatory commentary.
The television channel
Zee has led the main campaign by branding Professor Menon as ‘anti-national’
and instigating viewers to take action. Such branding is tantamount to a
television channel acting as both judge and jury, and directly placing an
individual’s rights and safety under threat.
The use of television
media to attack intellectuals and instigate vigilante action is a feature of
authoritarian regimes worldwide. Similar tendencies are visible in recent
months in India. Singling out individuals and creating a mass-frenzy against
them by using the medium of TV is a dangerous trend that directly incites and
encourages violence. This is a deep disregard for any process of law.
We saw Zee TV do this
earlier when doctored videos became the basis of arrest and harassment of JNU
students. In this case, Twitter and social media campaigns have followed
attacks on Professor Menon, demanding the framing of sedition charges against
her and wielding open threats of rape. Most disturbingly, there are media
reports of police complaints filed by interested parties demanding ‘action’
against Professor Menon.
Professor Menon is a
renowned scholar and feminist thinker; her texts are used in university syllabi
worldwide. As a prominent scholar and activist she has intervened in academic
and public debates for decades. Professor Menon has also been known as an
inspiring teacher for 30 years, guiding generations of students who now
work in India and abroad. She has never shied away from intellectual debate in
academic and public forums, passionately intervening in debates on feminism and
social theory. This is the first time that her own freedom to articulate her
ideas has been so viciously attacked in an orchestrated media campaign.
The freedom to
articulate ideas is the basis of a university. When opinions voiced in a public
lecture by an academic are made part of a selective media campaign that seeks
not to debate but simply to malign, both democracy and the university are under
threat.
What is under question
are not just Professor Menon’s ideas but also the very freedom for academics
and citizens. We condemn this media campaign and associated threats, urging all
academics and intellectuals to stand with Professor Menon at this time.
We call on the Vice
Chancellor of JNU to swiftly defend Professor Menon from such attacks and
protect the sanctity of university debate.
We urge the JNU
administration to stand by its faculty’s right to hold individual opinions and
condemn all efforts to diminish this. We call on the university to immediately
ensure that freedoms that form its very academic basis are not eroded in this
moment. We call further for every censure and action against the unlawful
actions of the television channels in question. Finally, we urge all well
wishers of a democratic India to stand by Professor Menon for their own
freedoms, and not just hers.
