The Philosophy Department of Delhi University has received a new instruction that it is said that the syllabus of undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG) course should not include Pakistan, famous poet and thinker Muhammad Iqbal, and any material related to the ancient book Manusmriti. This instruction came from the Dean of Academics on 12 June and the department has been asked to complete its review by 16 June.

Email from Dean’s office states that there should be no mention of these three things in all semester units and reading list of PG syllabus (under NEP). All faculty members of the department have been asked to carefully check and confirm the content of each course.

These subjects will not be taught

A member of the department said on the condition of anonymity that for the last few years, this thing is being repeatedly said by the Vice-Chancellor that the subjects dividing the society will not be taught in the university. The material related to Iqbal has been removed earlier, but still some departments were trying to include them in the new course.

In the year 2023, a unit based on Muhammad Iqbal was removed from BA (Hons) Political Science course. Iqbal, who is the author of all Jahan Se Achhe, was later declared the national poet of Pakistan. At the same time, a new alternative course was added to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in the same year.

Earlier this month, it was recommended to remove issues like Psychology and Israel-Felistine from syllabus, saying that these topics are disputed and their psychological references are not clear. Instead, it was said to give more space to Indian thinkers like Gandhi and Buddha.

Biopolitics courses are also canceled It was said earlier that this subject is related to political science and later it was completely removed. Some teachers of the department believe that this course was necessary, but due to short time, they could not oppose it. Such changes from the university administration are being described as a step towards maintaining social unity