The Chaudhary Charan Singh University (CCSU) in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut has barred a political science professor at a prominent, government-funded college from examination and evaluation work for life after she allegedly set a question paper with two ‘objectionable’ questions related to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Meerut College acted against Professor Seema Panwar, the head of its political science department, after the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which is affiliated to the RSS, staged a protest over the paper at the CCSU campus on Saturday. The controversy arose over a Political Science exam held on April 2 for second-year students. The paper had two multiple-choice questions (MCQs) linked to the RSS. While question number 87 asked what led to the rise of the RSS, with one of the choices suggesting it was due to religious and caste-based politics, one of the answers to question number 97 mentioned the RSS along with the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Naxalites. Dhirendra Kumar Verma, Registrar, CCSU, said the university had decided to debar the professor for life from all examination and evaluation work after holding a meeting on the issue. “The university never reviews the question papers set by selected experts of different fields because it is believed that he or she, being an expert of the subject, has set the question paper as per the established norms. Hence, there should not be any doubt on his or her vested interests,” Verma said. Professor Panwar, on her part, submitted a written apology to the university administration and said that the probable answers mentioned in the question paper were from the textbook and not out of syllabus. “I have been in the teaching profession for 25 years. None of the questions in the examination paper was out of syllabus. The MCQs have options for the right and wrong answers…The book by M Lakshmikant is authorised in the CCSU curriculum in the Political Science stream and puts the RSS at the top of the religious pressure group. Hence, it was one of the choices,” Panwar explained.
