We note that this terrible event comes in the wake of a prolonged struggle by the students against a fee hike that would force nearly half of them to abandon their studies, and after an even longer series of protests by the faculty and students of JNU against the many arbitrary and illegal actions of the JNU Vice Chancellor over nearly three years. We are extremely concerned at the apparent failure of the Delhi Police (which is directly under the Home Ministry) to identify the perpetrators despite much photographic and video evidence, to register the complaints made by faculty and students about the attack, and the malicious attempt to pin the blame for the attack on some of the victims.
It is clear to us that a Vice Chancellor who exposes his faculty and students to such terror and who is guilty of many other actions undermining the academic and other functioning of the University, cannot remain in office. As academics from universities across the world, we join those who demand that the JNU Vice Chancellor should be removes forthwith, as he has lost all national and international legitimacy.
Signatories:
1. Alicia Puyana, Flacso, Mexico
2. Andres Lazzarini, Goldsmiths College, London
3. Anya Stiglitz, Columbia University, New York
4. Ben Fine, SOAS, University of London, UK
5. C. W. M Naastepad, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
6. Edward Fulbrook, University of the West of England, UK
7. Cecilia Lopez, CoSOE, Bogota, Colombia
8. Erinc Telgan, Bilkent University, Turkey
9. Francesca Bettio, University of Siena, Italy
10. Gerald Epstein, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA
11. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, University of Florence, Italy
12. Jane Humphries, University of Oxford, UK
13. Jose Antonio Ocampo, Columbia University, New York
14. Juan Carlos Moreno Brid, UNAM, Mexico City
15. K. Velupillai, Fromerly University Of Trento, Italy
16. M. A. Savage, LSE, London, UK
17. Marcella Corsi, Sapienza Univsity, Rome, Italy
18. Marga Olivera, Universided federal de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
19. Mariana Mazzucato, University College London, UK
20. Nalini Burn, Mauritius
21. Rainer Kattel, University College London, UK
22. Richard Jude Rowden, American University, Washington DC, USA
23. Robert Pollin, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA
24. Robert Wade, LSE, London, UK
25. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, New School University, New York
26. Servaas Storm, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
27. Vivianne Ventura-Dias, Santiago, Chile
28. Walden Bello, Manila Philippines