Over a dozen academics, under the aegis of SAHMAT, issued a statement recently criticizing HRD minister Kapil Sibal’s stand to withdraw the NCERT texts that contained the Ambedkar cartoon, saying the issue could not be treated like one of mere executive discretion.
Signed by eminent academics, including Romila Thapar, Amitabh Kundu, Zoya Hasan, Gopal Guru, Prabhat Patnaik and M K Raina, the statement said, "Whatever be the merits of the case against the cartoon, the matter should not be treated as one of mere executive discretion. This establishes the kind of precedent that should be avoided. Such issues are bound to come up from time to time, therefore appropriate procedures have to be followed, such as the setting up of a committee of academics to look in to each case, so that summary judgments of the ministers concerned, under political pressures of various kinds, do not determine the contents of our academic syllabi."
The intellectuals also condemned the vandalism at Prof Suhas Palshikar’s office. "Such vandalism is fundamentally antithetical to the democratic values cherished by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar for which he is justly revered by all Indians," it added.