Historian Ramachandra Guha not to join Ahmedabad University

NEW DELHI: Termed anti-national, urban Naxal by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, historian, biographer and author Ramachandra Guha announced his decision of not joining the Ahmedabad University (AU) in Gujarat “due to circumstances beyond [his] control”.

Guha’s appointment as the Chair Professor of Humanities and director of the Gandhi Winter School at AU’s School of Arts and Sciences did not go down well with the members of ABVP who demanded the university’s rescind its offer.

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Guha in a tweet on Thursday said: “Due to circumstances beyond my control, I shall not be joining Ahmedabad University. I wish AU well; it has fine faculty and an outstanding Vice-Chancellor. And may the spirit of Gandhi one day come alive once more in his native Gujarat.”

The ABVP also submitted a letter to the university’s Vice-Chancellor demanding cancellation of Guha’s appointment.

Pravin Desai, ABVP’s secretary for Ahmedabad city, confirmed this to The Indian Express: “We made a representation before AU Registrar B M Shah. We said that we want intellectuals in our educational institutes and not anti-nationals, who can also be termed as ‘urban Naxals’. We had quoted anti-national content from his (Guha’s) books to the Registrar. We told him, the person you are calling is a ‘Communist’. If he is invited to Gujarat, there would be a JNU-kind anti-national sentiment.”