People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) India, is shocked at the troubling views expressed by Dr Yogesh Singh, professor and Vice Chancellor Delhi University on 28th September, 2025 in a speech titled “Naxal Mukt Bharat: Ending Red Terror Under Modi’s Leadership, Why Campuses are Targets?’ The speech was addressed to university teachers, students and others and was later emailed to both former and current students of Delhi University, using the vast database available to the university. It was also uploaded on Prof Singh’s official YouTube channel and on his social media platforms. The speech has three dimensions which are particularly troubling from the point of view of the Vice Chancellor’s responsibility to ensure that he is faithful to constitutional values.
Denigration of the constitutional value of freedom of thought, conscience and speech
Firstly, the Vice Chancellor lays out the proposition that Naxalism has moved from the forests to the universities, transmuting into ‘Urban Naxalism’ and is now polluting the young minds of students. The ‘polluting’ is done by teachers both through classroom and out of classroom interactions, where students, interalia, are convinced to care about tribals thousands of kilometeres away. Ostensibly sounding a note of caution, Prof Singh issued a veiled warning about professors in classrooms who, he said, spoke of corruption and used emotional blackmail to trick innocent students into following them and went on to attack academic institutions and researchers who “fudge data” and arrive at what he termed “agenda-driven analysis” .
In what appears to be an open call to weaponise campuses and teachers against anyone who dared to speak in a critical voice, Prof Singh told teachers they had a responsibility to “speak out against these people”: and repeatedly reminded them that the armed forces, government and police were “doing their work”. Teachers and professors need to be strategic to do research that builds up a counter narrative to weaken and challenge urban naxals, he said.
PUCL India is alarmed at the manner in which the Vice Chancellor posited the ostensible “naxal” threat on campuses. For over a decade now, the loose and repeated usage of such terms have been weaponized against all those who harbor social justice concerns. The main thrust of Prof Singh’s astonishing and unnerving speech was to exhort and “challenge” the university’s teaching staff to “identify” and “remove” elements on campuses – be they teaching faculty, researchers or students – who seek to “work against the nation and break it”. The repeated calls to members of the teaching faculty to seek out and identify those who are allegedly “urban naxals” is a dangerous attempt to surveil and police both classrooms and teaching faculty. The repeated calls to members of the teaching faculty to seek out and identify those who are allegedly “urban naxals” is a dangerous attempt to surveil and police both classrooms and teaching faculty
It is disappointing that the head of the institution derides efforts by the faculty to teach students to think critically about society and to do academic research which aims at the pursuit of truth. It is particularly reprehensible that the Vice Chancellor’s call is to “crush” all independent voices of enquiry and dissent in campuses which he loosely and repeatedly termed ‘urban naxals” and “anti-national.” Moreover, it is disappointing that the head of the institution derides efforts by the faculty to teach students to think critically about society and academic research and the pursuit of truth. It is particularly reprehensible that the Vice Chancellor call is to “crush” all independent voices of enquiry and dissent in campuses which he loosely and repeatedly termed ‘urban naxals” and anti-national.
In blatant support for crude indoctrination over rational discourse in classrooms, the Vice Chancellor praised films made by propagandist film-maker Vivek Agnihotri and asked teachers to make use of the films in classroom instruction. Mr Singh’s anti-intellectual mindset was clearly in evidence, as he disregarded the falsehoods and disinformation peddled in these films and instead, maligned critically acclaimed films like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, that, in his opinion, glorified “urban naxals” and “spoiled” the minds of students.
The Vice Chancellor’s remarks are nothing other than an attempt to promote a homogenous discourse. in which dissenting voices have no place in the name of nationalism. In effect it is against the ethos of a university as a space which cultivates the freedom of thought. The Vice Chancellor is promoting a culture of McCarthyism, encouraging and even inciting faculty to report on other faculty who may have ‘anti national’ thoughts. In effect the word anti-national will be deployed to root out any opposition to the government in power doing disservice to the constitutional idea of India as a country in which diversity of views flourish.
The Vice Chancellor must remember that, at the heart of any university, is the freedom of thought and the freedom of speech. The freedom of thought and speech implies that a university is space where different ideas are debated and discussed. A university is a space where students learn that there are viewpoints they may not agree with, but they have a space too in a constitutional democracy. It is this constitutional promise of the freedom of speech and thought which the Vice Chancellor casts aside in his remarks to crush thoughts he does not agree with. In fact, the Vice Chancellor’s remarks are anthithetical to the ethos of the constitution, based as it is on the freedom of thought, conscience and expression. The PUCL fears that such clearly defamatory and inciting speeches emanating from a person of such high office bodes ill for democratic discourse in campuses when academic censorship is at an all time high. The recently released report “Free to Think 2025” report by the Scholars at Risk (SAR) Academic Freedom Monitoring Project has placed India amongst countries that were “completely restricted with respect to academic freedom.”
Trading in false, unsubstantiated and malicious remarks about faculty students and academics of Delhi University
In the over 20 minute speech, replete with unsubstantiated and defamatory statements about alleged “urban naxals” on campus, Prof Singh named Delhi university’s professors and student activists charged and imprisoned under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, including members of the feminist student group Pinjar Tod (Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal), charged in the Delhi riots case and Prof Hany Babu and professors Dr Shoma Sen and Dr Anand Teltumbde (mispronounced by Prof Singh as Teltumbedke), charged in the Bhima Koregaon case. The taking of the names of Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal fails to mention that the Delhi High Court while granting them bail cast serious doubt on the credibility of the prosecution itself.
In Devangana Kalita v NIA, the Delhi High Court held that ‘We are afraid, that in our opinion, shorn-off the superfluous verbiage, hyperbole and the stretched inferences drawn from them by the prosecuting agency, the factual allegations made against the appellant do not prima facie disclose the commission of any off ence under sections 15, 17 and/or 18 of the UAPA.’ In Natasha Narwal v NIA, the Delhi High Court held that ‘in its anxiety to suppress dissent, in the mind of the State, the line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity seems to be getting somewhat blurred. If this mindset gains traction, it would be a sad day for democracy.’
It behoves the Vice Chancellor to note that all of those he mentions are accused and not convicted by any court of law. A trial is yet to commence in all cases. In fact while the others named have been released on bail, Prof Hany Babu is still denied bail, more than five years after his arrest in July 2020, in an egregious instance of injustice. Besides, the Vice Chancellor has abrogated his responsibility to lead from the front and even stand in defence of his own students and faculty who have been wrongly charged and accused in long drawn-out criminal proceedings. Has the Vice Chancellor forgotten that a senior professor of Delhi University, Prof G N Saibaba, was acquitted by the Supreme Court in March last year and succumbed barely a few months later in October after his health deteriorated due to prolonged incarceration?
The VC displays his patriarchal mindset in his attempts to denigrate and patronise the members of the Pinjra Tod
Prof Singh set his sights on the Pinjra Tod movement for non-discrimination and safety of women students of Delhi University. In an appalling display of paternalistic and patriarchal bias, he said that women students who approached him to ensure safety for girls on campuses when he was Vice Chancellor of Delhi Technical University were arrogant, aggressive, disrespectful and unmindful of their responsibilities towards “nation, parents and the system”. He decried their demand for freedom to move about safely on campus after 9p.m and for better lighting and security. The members of Pinjra Tod were articulating the principle of equality and demanding a freedom from patriarchal mores which sought to control women’s freedom of movement. Instead of responding to the constitutional imperative of gender equality, the Vice Chancellor sought to make light of the demand by casually observing that, “absolute freedom is a utopia that doesn’t and should not exist.”
In Anuj Garg v. State of Delhi, the Supreme Court in striking down a Delhi law which prohibited women from working in a bar at night, struck down the ban as a misguided instance of ‘paternalism’ based on ‘gender stereotypes’. The Court went on to hold that, ‘Instead of prohibiting women employment in the bars altogether the state should focus on factoring in ways through which unequal consequences of sex differences can be eliminated. It is state’s duty to ensure circumstances of safety which inspire confidence in women to discharge the duty freely in accordance to the requirements of the profession they choose to follow.’ The Vice Chancellor is constitutionally mandated to undertake measures to ensure gender equality and not patronize women students with an attitude of benevolent patriarchy.
PUCL India calls upon the Vice Chancellor to rescind his views forthwith and demands that all attempts be made to ensure that campuses are free spaces that nurture healthy debate and discussion. Such regressive and patriarchal views as the Vice Chancellor holds, have no place in a free and democratic institution and must be rejected for their anti-constitutional thrust. If these views overshadow the constitutional promise of freedom , generations of students will have minds dominated by fear and heads cowed down by authority.
The Vice Chancellor must not forget it is Tagore’s Geetanjali which captures the essence of a university and the heart of what we expect a university to cultivate in its students. It deserves to be quoted in full:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Kavita Srivastava
(President)
V. Suresh
(General Secretary)
