A member of the Delhi University’s Academic Council on Thursday said that its Standing Committee has no expertise or right to remove books from a syllabus prepared by a group of subject experts. Saikat Ghosh, an elected teachers’ representative in the council, said the committee on its own cannot decide the merits or demerits of teaching books.

His remarks came a day after the university’s Standing Committee on Academic Matters decided to recommend removing three books by Dalit writer-activist Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd from the political science syllabus because of their “controversial content”. The committee has also suggested discontinuing the use of the word “Dalit” in academic discourse.

“It is a dismal outcome of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated ruling dispensation’s increasing interference in premier universities like DU that the University’s Standing Committee of Academic Council has recommended the removal of Kancha Ilaiah’s books, branded him anti-Hindu and disallowed the use of the word ‘Dalit’ in academic discussions, teaching and learning,” Ghosh said in a statement.

Ghosh said that the committee overreached itself by not seeking the political science department’s views on the academic value of Shepherd’s books, and described the move as “browbeating and bullying”.

Committee member Professor Hansraj Suman said the books Why I Am Not A Hindu, Buffalo Nationalism, and Post-Hindu India were removed as they were insulting to Hinduism, The Indian Express reported.

Ghosh also protested against the suggestion that the word “Dalit” should be dropped from academic discourse. “No court of law has banned the use of this word,” he said. “The Supreme Court merely directed public institutions to refer to Dalits as SCs in official correspondence related to government policy as Scheduled Castes is a juridico-legal category. That does not mean that we stop using the word Dalit in academic and intellectual discourse.”

Ghosh said he would formally write to President Ram Nath Kovind as well as the vice-chancellor to protest against the “academic terrorism” unleashed by the RSS.

Standing Committee member Nachiketa Singh said he repeatedly opposed the removal of some books from the syllabus. “I am of the considered view that a statutory body like the Standing Committee on Academic Affairs should take decisions on books, essential readings and references of any subject purely on academic merit and relevance rather than political and ideological considerations,” he said.

Meanwhile, the All India Students Association called upon the university’s Academic Council to reject such a recommendation. “University must be a place where opposing ideas are debated, discussed and challenged,” it said. “This move by university is another attempt to gag critical voices and to fit its RSS model of education in place.”

In a statement, Shepherd said the decision was anti-academic and part of the larger agenda of the RSS and the BJP to not allow plural ideas to be taught in the universities.