New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Thursday (October 24) cancelled three seminars, to be addressed by the Iranian, Palestinian and Lebanese Ambassadors to India on separate occasions, citing “unavoidable circumstances”.
The seminars were meant to address the ongoing violence in West Asian countries and had been organised by the Centre for West Asian Studies, housed under the university’s School of International Studies (SIS), the Indian Express reported.
On Thursday, Iranian Ambassador to India, Iraj Elahi, was meant to address JNU students at a seminar titled “How Iran sees the recent developments in West Asia”. Hours before the event, seminar coordinator Sima Baidya wrote to students informing them of its cancellation.
Baidya also informed the students of the cancellation of the November 7 seminar by Palestinian Ambassador Adnan Abu Al-Haija and the November 14 seminar on the situation in Lebanon by Ambassador Rabie Narsh.
The decision to cancel the seminars was taken by the university, sources at the Iranian and Lebanese Embassies told the Indian Express.
According to the report, senior faculty members had expressed concern over potential protests on campus due to the polarising nature of topics chosen for the seminars.
“The purpose of such seminars is to gain insights into the perspectives of West Asian countries amidst the current geopolitical climate. However, there were concerns about how the campus might react,” said a university source.
“We are living in a charged global atmosphere, where sentiments can get easily inflamed. This is to request you to take the Dean into confidence before you invite any diplomat to the School for any public event. Please also ensure that any individual faculty initiative in this regard is routed through you. We also want to ensure that every visitor to the School, especially at the Ambassadorial level, is accorded proper protocol. SIS has always stood for maintaining the highest standards of academic freedom and excellence while ensuring that the integrity of our platforms are not violated or exploited by vested interests,” SIS Dean Amitabh Mattoo wrote in a communication to chairpersons of all SIS Centres on Thursday.
Mattoo redirected requests for comment to chairperson of Centre for West Asian Studies, Sameena Hameed. Hameed said the seminar with the Iranian Ambassador had been postponed on Wednesday, while the other two seminars were not “officially scheduled” by the Centre.
“The seminars for the Palestinian Ambassador’s talk and the Lebanese Ambassador’s talk were not officially scheduled by the Centre. As for today’s seminar with the Iranian Ambassador, the Centre had communicated that it would be postponed because it was organised at the very last minute, and we were not in a position to follow the required protocols to host the Ambassador. There may have been some miscommunication at some level,” she said.
“…These Ambassadors have been coming to our university for a long time, and they will continue to come and interact with students,” Hameed added.
