New Delhi: On Monday morning, the gate of the Hindu College of Delhi University (DU) was closed, with several guards stationed outside. Only students and faculty members with valid identification were allowed entry. There was tension in the air.
Just last week, college history professor Ratan Lal was booked for an allegedly objectionable social media post he made on a ‘Shivling’ that was allegedly found in Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque.
Delhi Police arrested the professor on Friday night, three days after Supreme Court lawyer Vineet Jindal filed a complaint against him.
A Delhi court gave him Bail On Saturday, but before the incident, there was an uproar among students of several DU colleges, who protested for 24 hours straight after Lal’s arrest.
While his post on ‘Shivling’ has generated mixed reactions, college students have also organized a demonstration to apologize to him, describing Lal as an authority on his subject and discussing caste. Which is almost an issue. Heart of Dalit Professor
Prior to his arrest, Lal had told ThePrint that his comments on social media were “sarcastic” and did not intend to hurt anyone’s religious sentiments.
“From Gautam Buddha to Ambedkar, from Periyar to Phule, critique of religion has been a part of the discourse. I haven’t written anything wrong…” he said.
Read also: DU professor gets bail in ‘Shivling’ post case, students continue to protest ‘planned attack’
22 Years With Hindu College, Contested Bihar Election
Lal, 50, left his home in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur at a young age in pursuit of education and soon found himself involved in student politics at DU. His early education at the university was funded by former MLA Hardayal Singh Kamboj.
Lal obtained his master’s degree and PhD from Ramjas College and joined Hindu College in 2000.
During his career, he has written and edited 10 books, including Kashi Prasad Jaiswal: The Making of a ‘Nationalist’ Historian, He has around 80,000 followers on Twitter and runs a social media channel called ‘Ambedkarnama’, which has several thousand followers on Facebook.
It was never easy for Lal to become a Dalit professor among DU’s upper caste professors, said Sagar Tiwari, a 40-year-old history professor at OP Jindal University, who had come in contact with him in his second year of college.
“Due to his analysis of caste, Lal is often referred to as a man who takes up caste on every issue. On Ambedkarnama, he was once accused of wooing minorities and raising minority issues in every conversation,” he said. “I also did a live show with him on his channel and talked about how he worked for every oppressed person keeping their caste in mind. Here I was an upper caste student who was very much influenced by his ideas.”
According to him, Lal’s classes were suggestive, and his reading on caste matters as well as his ability to connect history with contemporary politics was “unprecedented and had an impact on them”.
“The debate and interaction with Professor Lal spread outside the classroom as well. His arguments opened a window to a world that struck my young mind and inspired me to take up history as a subject and a vocation,” Tiwari said.
Professor Lal’s Twitter timeline includes videos of Ambedkarnama and tweets on Dalit and minority issues. some of the Tweets indicates that the channel was subject to hacking on YouTube in February this year and was resumed After several written requests.
Most of the videos on Ambedkarnama are focused on caste issues. For example, during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections, the video alleged that “politics of Dalit appeasement has now been replaced by Brahmin appeasement”. A video on Punjab talks about the rise of Dalit Sikh, Charanjit Singh Channi, as Chief Minister. There are also videos of Lal interacting with Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad and farmer leader Rakesh Tikait at the farmers’ protest.
Professor Lal has been active in Bihar politics, and contested the 2015 assembly election as an independent, where he got 3 percent of the vote.
“He had contested the Bihar elections in 2015 from the Patepur constituency. Initially RJD had promised him a ticket but eventually he was not given a ticket. He then decided to contest as an independent candidate and came third in the election,” said Suraj Mandal, Lal’s friend from the college and now a professor at Swami Shraddhanand College.
“In fact, he was so active with the RJD that he convinced (DU professor) Manoj Kumar Jha (now RJD MP in Rajya Sabha) to join the party,” he said.
‘A popular student’
Mandal remembers Lal as “a popular student who was politically active”.
“I (RSS student wing) was in ABVP, while Ratan was inclined towards speaking up for the oppressed and backward classes. However, our ideologies have never been the basis for any differences.”
Professor Abha Dev Habib of Miranda College described Lal as an opinion maker. “He raises relevant social issues and talks about them on his social media platforms,” she said.
Another colleague of Lal, Prem Kumar Vijayan, assistant professor of English at Hindu College, had similar views. “Professor Lal is an outspoken member of the faculty and he actively participates in the affairs of the Staff Association and the College. He is well known among students and faculty members,” he said.
On Lal’s arrest, Vijayan said: “It is really a matter of freedom of expression and right of an individual to have an opinion. If someone’s social media post is offensive to you, then you express your opinion against them on social media. There is no need to initiate legal proceedings against one who does not agree with you.”
He added that “Lal is straight-up and blunt in expressing his opinion, which may not be something that everyone likes”.
Anju Srivastava, principal of Hindu College, declined to comment on the professor or his arrest and said: “This is a very important time for the college. Our exams are going on, we have to focus on inspection and evaluation.”
Read also: Gyanvapi is like Babri for BJP. It will shock the election but will take India to a dark past
student divided
Professor Lal’s ‘Shivling’ designation and arrest have caused some division in the student community.
While most students agitated against his arrest, a group of students from the Sanskrit department of Hindu College protested outside the college gate on Monday, demanding that the professor apologize for his social media posts.
21-year-old Abhishek Tripathi, who was part of the protest, told ThePrint, “We are Hindus and we are unhappy with the post held by Professor Lal. We apologize to him and the college for removing him from his post.
Another student of the college, who declined to be named, said that Lal was a well-known face and the matter had been exaggerated.
“I haven’t attended her classes so I don’t know how she is there, but with recognition comes responsibility. She has to be sensitive to people’s feelings. Jokes like this only show her in a bad light. Me Looks like he should apologize for his statement.”
A member of his group of friends shouted: “The whole issue is now politicized by left and right wing student parties. No one is looking at it from a sensible, neutral perspective.”
A Muslim student who joined the protest asked “what is the meaning of the post”.
“Circumcision in our religion is a practice advocated by our Prophet and we follow it. What’s the point of making such a ridiculous joke on this?” added the student on condition of anonymity.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)