The Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut has barred a professor from all examination and evaluation work for life after she set a question paper containing two allegedly “objectionable” questions about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, reported The Indian Express on Saturday.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the ideological parent of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP is in power in Uttar Pradesh and at the Centre as a part of the National Democratic Alliance.

Professor Seema Panwar was barred from examination work after the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad staged a protest at the university campus and submitted a memorandum to the registrar, reported India Today.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The question paper for a Political Science exam held on April 2 contained two multiple-choice questions that mentioned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, according to The Indian Express.

One of them asked what had led to the rise of the Hindutva organisation, with “religious and caste-based politics” mentioned as a possible answer. Another question had mentioned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh along with formerly armed separatist organisation Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front and Maoists.

The decision to bar Panwar from all examination and evaluation duties was taken after a meeting, Dhirendra Kumar Verma, the registrar of the university, was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

“The university never reviews the question papers set by selected experts of different fields because it is believed that he or she, being an expert of the subject, has set the question paper as per the established norms,” said Verma. “Hence, there should not be any doubt on his or her vested interests.”

On her part, Panwar submitted an apology to the university and said that the probable answers mentioned in the question paper were from the textbook.

“I have been in the teaching profession for 25 years,” she was quoted as saying. “None of the questions in the examination paper was out of syllabus. The MCQs have options for the right and wrong answers.”

Panwar said the book that was referred, by M Lakshmikant, is authorised in the university curriculum in the Political Science stream. She claimed it puts the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh “at the top of the religious pressure group”.