Even as she deals with accusations of posting derogatory tweets before she was appointed as the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) vice chancellor, Professor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit has found herself battling another controversy, as old allegations of impropriety during her tenure at the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) have now resurfaced.
While Prof Pandit is JNU’s first woman VC, this feat was overshadowed by old tweets, purportedly posted by her, where she had referred to protesting farmers as “parasites”, Shaheen Bagh protesters as “illegal jihadis”, and made other similar derogatory statements mocking journalists and activists.
As these tweets created a furore on social media platforms, Pandit, in an interview to The Indian Express, claimed that she didn't have a Twitter account but "somebody internally from JNU has done this". However, she contradicted her statement in the same interview, saying her account had been hacked.
"The point is, many people are unhappy that I am the first woman VC", she said.
Allegations of Corruption
Even as Pandit denied having tweeted contentious statements, an allegation of corruption against her from 2011 also resurfaced following the news of her appointment.
She was then the director of the International Students Centre of University of Pune, as the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) was then known.
A DNA report from 5 August 2011 said that she was found to have granted admission to 1,800 Indian students in various professional courses from 2002 to 2007 period for the seats reserved for Persons of Indian Origin (PIO).
The allegations were first raised by senate member Atul Bagul. Thereafter, the Sunanda Pawar enquiry committee was formed by the then UoP Vice Chancellor Narendra Jadhav.
The report of enquiry filed by the committee had observed that based on prima facie evidence "the admissions have been made without adhering to rules" by Pandit.
The report made some other damning observations. It said, “Her conduct does not appear to be fair and proper and stinks with dishonesty…in giving admissions to those students who were not eligible in the light of existing rules and for that purpose she sought the modification of the definitions of PIO and NRI to get over the difficulty…Her acts are therefore intentional and deliberate.”
For this offence, the university had stopped five of her increments. However, "this mild punishment," a source told The Quint, "was greatly criticised in university circles".
New JNU VC Was Part of RSS-Affiliated Institute’s Fact-Finding Team on 2009 Sangli Riots
The unverified Twitter handle in her name (@SantishreeD) has now been deleted, but many feel that the aggressive right-wing views in the tweets have set the tone for Pandit's tenure as JNU VC.
While her predecessor M Jagadesh Kumar had quite a contentious tenure, marred by student violence on the campus, among other things, a source from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at SPPU, where Pandit had been teaching as a professor, said her right-wing inclination "is very evident".
"In the last one year, she has also boasted about having met RSS leader Dattatreya Hosabale," a source said, adding that "she is an extremely right-wing person".
Her proximity to the RSS has been apparent in certain instances as well.
On the condition of anonymity, another senior faculty member from the university pointed out that she was roped in to lead the fact-finding committee formed by the RSS-affiliated institute Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini's Centre for Human Rights Studies and Awareness to look into the Sangli-Miraj-Ichalkaranji riots of 2009.
The week-long communal violence between Hindus and Muslims had erupted in these areas in September 2009 over a large arch depicting Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji killing Mughal leader Afzal Khan during Ganapati celebrations in Miraj city of Maharashtra.
One of the observations made in the report accuses the police of displaying "huge insensitivity towards the feelings of the majority community".
"The very act of removing the arch generated a triumphant feeling amongst the Muslims, which was further fanned by the anti-social elements from that community. However, at the same time, a sense of dejection crept into Hindu community which felt badly hurt by the scant respect shown by the government of the day to their feelings," the report read.
Relationship With SPPU Faculty
All the three sources The Quint got in touch with for this report said that the faculty members, especially in the Political Science Department where Pandit taught, had a minimal relationship with her.
"Her ideological differences with other faculty members started cropping up only much later. However, a big reason behind the less-than-cordial relations with Pandit is the fact that after she became the Director of the International Students Centre, she would be absent from the department most of the time, except during her class hours," one of the sources said.
Casting aspersions on whether her academic qualifications merit her appointment as JNU VC, a source pointed out that at least one of her books have been published by Lambert Publication — which has immense disrepute in the academia for publishing content without editing or quality check.
Several universities have also put out advisories for scholars over this.
As Prof Pandit embarked on this new position, in a press release on 7 February, she said that her "focus would be constructing Indo-centric narratives".
Commenting on the scathing criticism around her appointment, she told The Indian Express, “Why am I being treated so badly and shabbily by the press? What sin have I done? Just because Prime Minister Narendra Modi beat the Left in breaking a glass ceiling, which the Left did not do.”
Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit did not respond to The Quint's requests for a comment on various allegations that have come up since her appointment.
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