A teacher’s job is to impart knowledge and insight to students and then it’s up to them which way they go, and what ideology they choose to follow. It’s not a teacher’s job to indoctrinate or brainwash students. Nor does any teacher have the right to harass and intimidate students who don’t follow their viewpoint.
But unfortunately, that’s what’s happening in Bharatiya universities these days. Universities in Bharat are becoming the epicenters of woke leftist propaganda so much so that students with a non-leftist point of view are being shamed as right-wingers by the faculty itself.
Professor Sameena Dalwai (daughter of Congress leader Hamid Dalwai) who teaches Gender at OP Jindal Global University reportedly has a track record of harassing students whom she calls “right-wing” and opposing Jai Shri Ram slogans on campus. Dr Sameena Dalwai was also a part of the recently held controversial talk at OP Jindal Global University by Professor Vanaik glorifying Hamas and calling the Indian army a terrorist organization in the context of Pulwama attacks.
According to various media reports, email exchanges between Professor Dalwai and other faculty members have been circulating where she suggests that they attend the talk before forming any preconceived notions about its subject matter. Dalwai is a known Hamas sympathizer maintaining that Hamas did not commit any atrocities on Israelis and labeled it “fake news spread by Indian troll armies”.
Professor Dalwai is in the middle of another controversy now, this time a serious incident involving the breach of the privacy of female students. A video has gone viral in which the Professor can be seen showing a female student’s Bumble account to the whole class on a projector. Screenshots featuring the private conversation of students condemning the violation of the privacy of a female student’s private account ( Bumble is a dating app) and showing it to a class of 40 odd students have also gone viral. The students in that chat seem to be expressing their disgust at the gross inappropriateness of the whole thing but they also accept that if they complain against her, it will affect their marks. “Bro, I understand the whole marks thing and how we shouldn’t complain about this but what she did was really fucked, it was deaming and sad to display bumble and dissect people like that”, reads the leaked chat snippet.
Now the obvious question is, why would a teacher open a student’s private dating account in class? What has it got to with teaching? Professor Sameena Dalwai was apparently trying to do some personality dissection through this exercise that literally bordered on name-calling the student in question and hurling stereotypes at her. The woke lobby will undoubtedly try to brush off these allegations against her by calling all this an innovative pedagogy tool and by arguing that the Professor is being nitpicked because she is a Muslim. The reality however is, that it’s the students who are being nitpicked and harassed. Making a female student feel uncomfortable in front of the whole class and dissecting her private dating behavior in the name of personality dissection is anything but teaching. It certainly smacks of an ulterior motive and agenda, perhaps of shaming students who don’t conform to the teacher’s worldview.
We spoke to Rashmi Samant, the author of “A Hindu in Oxford” who became the first Bharatiya to be elected as the President of Oxford University’s Student Union but had to eventually step down because of constant harassment and singling owing to her ethnic and religious backgrounds. According to Rashmi, the incident that happened at OP Jindal University is precisely the kind that makes students withdraw into a corner and stay silent because of fear of punishment, “ Well, when it comes to the incident at OP Jindal University, I believe that this kind of predatory behavior and harassment especially directed towards female students is extremely problematic because most students, I have observed, in my long experience, as a Student Union Leader, both in Bharat and then abroad is that they out of fear of having their marks reduced or having to face preferential treatment in classes which can directly affect their academics, they often refuse to complain, they often refuse to go through process, then often refuse to speak out when this kind of harassment coming out from faculty members. And historically, it’s been observed that universities always try to protect their professors because their reputation is inadvertently linked to that”, she says.
Renu W. Bhatia, the Chairperson of, the Haryana State Commission For Women has taken cognizance of the issue and shared a post on X in this regard. According to the post, she will conduct an investigation into the incident by visiting the university premises and interacting with the Vice-Chancellor and students.
“The violation of the constitution and the spread of hate crimes by Professors, who should serve as mentors and guides for students’ development, cannot be tolerated. Moreover, this can also be deemed socially harmful or dangerous”, she says in her post on X.
Professor Sameena Dalwai has a track record of peddling left-wing propaganda. She has written extensively for media publications like AlJazeera, NewcClick, The Wire, etc. “’Will India’s future generations forgive its decay into anti-Muslim hatred?”, “Love Jihad Laws: India is Facing a Battle of Constitutions”, “Mixed race not only lives but thrives. “Withdrawing Tanishq ad means denying our reality”, are a few titles of her articles that have been published in mainstream media.
A cursory Google search with her name yields scores of such articles along similar lines, that seem to be accusing the Bharatiya government of oppressing Muslims, and vehemently trying to cancel Hindu activism by calling the issues manufactured and fake. She has even written an article critiquing the government’s ban on Triple Talaq. So, her positioning is quite typical of a standard work Islamic activist. This itself is not an issue if she doesn’t try to push her ideology down the throats of students and harass those who don’t agree. Everyone is entitled to their views and opinions, but teaching is not activism. When one is in the classroom, they have to leave all their prejudices outside and address all issues with an open mind. This clearly doesn’t seem to be the case with Professor Dalwai who is reportedly opening calling students “right-wing”.
It’s shocking that a Bharatiya university would allow such a lecture on its campus that glorifies a terrorist organization like Hamas and equates the Bharatiya army to a terrorist organization. Not just that, the ex-Delhi University Professor who gave that lecture also made many shocking and insulting comments about Hindu Dharma.
As Rashmi Samant pointed out, students are vulnerable, and they won’t take the risk of coming out in public against a Professor when they know that they might have to continue studying under her for all they know. The onus is on the university to address student grievances and take strict action against such Professors.
A Guru Shishya relationship is that of enormous trust and respect. If a teacher starts abusing that relationship by casting students into the mould of their own prejudices and labeling them right-wing and stuff, do they have the moral right to be called a teacher?
