Kannur University in the eye of a storm over inclusion of works of Savarkar and Golwalkar and other Hindutva icons for course in a postgraduate programme

A major academic and political controversy has risen in Kerala over the inclusion of excerpts from the works of Hindutva ideologues such as V.D. On September 10, Vice Chancellor Gopinath Ravindran denied allegations that the new paper was an attempt at “saffronisation of education” and said the writings of Hindutva icons were included “to enable students develop a critical understanding about various strands of Indian political thought,” the core topic of the course in the third semester. Higher Education Minister R. Bindu, on September 9, termed the development as “highly sensitive” and said that it was “dangerous” to have communal references in a university syllabus and that “if the syllabus required any change, the university would take appropriate steps. Muneer, however, said that the main issue was that “Golwalkar, Savarkar, Upadhyaya and such others have got more importance in the syllabus than Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru. When there is such a disproportionate representation, we fear that it will become a syllabus favouring the RSS.” Earlier, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had said in a brief response to the controversy that “though regressive ideas may need to be examined and studied carefully, the State Government’s view was that ideologies and leaders who had turned their faces away from the country’s independence struggle should not be glorified.”