The department of political science and public policy of Gurugram University recently cancelled a talk show based on the Palestinian struggle in India and globally.
The department was scheduled to conduct the talk show on the agenda – ‘Palestinian Struggle for Equal Rights: India & Global Response’ by Zoya Hasan, a JNU professor from the centre for political studies department on November 12.
However, on November 10, Hasan received a call from the show organisers informing that the event stands cancelled.
Speaking to The Wire, Hasan said he was approached by Gurugram University faculty who requested her to arrange a discussion about how people in India and around the world are responding to the ongoing Palestinian military operation.
“I readily accepted the invitation to deliver the talk on Palestine though fully aware and apprehensive that it might actually not happen. Had it been a talk on social policies etc, the talk would have still happened even if there were logistical issues. But for Palestine, it seems the Department suddenly became logistically unequipped,” Hasan said.
This is not the first time an event involving Palestine or the Palestinian struggle has been cancelled. In the past, there have been two instances where educational institutions cancelled such events at the last moment.
In October, Jawaharlal Nehru University cancelled three seminars citing “unavoidable circumstances”. These seminars, meant to shed light on the ongoing violence in West Asian countries, were to be addressed by the Iranian, Palestinian and Lebanese ambassadors to India on separate occasions.
The seminars were organised by the Centre for West Asian Studies, housed under the university’s School of International Studies (SIS).
In November last year, the Indian Institute of Bombay (IIT-B) cancelled a lecture titled ‘Israel-Palestine: The Historical Context’ by professor Achin Vanaik after protests erupted regarding his pro-Palestine and pro-Hamas stance.
