Replace Portions on Kashmir, Palestine Conflicts With Gita or Mahabharata: DU Academic Council
The Wire Staff
New Delhi: A member of the Delhi University’s Academic Council has raised concerns over “undue scrutiny and interference” in the psychology syllabus at a meeting of the university’s standing committee on academic matters, PTI reported.
The member, Monami Sinha, who is an associate professor at the University-run Kamala Nehru College, is also a member of the standing committee.
As per the report, Sinha said the ‘Psychology of Peace’ course, designed for the undergraduate level, was “a major point of discussion, especially unit 4,” which deals with conflict resolution through case studies, like the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Kashmir issue.
Sinha claimed that there were calls to remove this unit altogether, with assertions that the Kashmir issue was ‘already resolved’ and that teaching the Israel-Palestine conflict was unnecessary.
The report further said that instead, it was proposed that “the unit be replaced with Indian philosophical texts, such as the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita, to reflect indigenous perspectives of peace.”
The standing committee on academic affairs is headed by Prakash Singh, a political science faculty member and director of the university’s south campus.
The standing committee is said to have also objected to content related to dating apps and social media. Significantly, Sinha told PTI that the proposals “were made to drop the Minority Stress Theory from the syllabus – a key framework for understanding the psychological experiences of marginalised groups.”
Additionally, she noted “objections to the inclusion of themes like caste discrimination, misogyny and prejudice under ‘Psychology of Diversity’, with suggestions to adopt a more ‘positive’ approach instead.”
The report underlined that Sinha felt, “The nature of the objections appears politically motivated,” and added that academic decisions “should be based on pedagogy and research, not ideology.”
The course is being re-designed as the University had adopted in 2022 a four-year undergraduate programme based on the National Education Policy brought by the Narendra Modi government.
The syllabi for all courses are being revised. After the standing committee ratifies the syllabus, it is thereafter dispatched to the academic council.
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