IIT Bombay ‘forced’ to cancel conference on ‘Cultures of Political Left’ after director’s order

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT Bombay) has cancelled the conference on ‘Cultures of the Political Left in Modern India’, which was scheduled to be held on December 12 and 13. The alleged last-minute cancellation of the conference was not received well and faced strong criticism on social media platforms.

“Following the directive from the IIT Bombay director that the conference on ‘Cultures of the Political Left in Modern India’ cannot be held “due to unavoidable circumstances”, we are forced to cancel the event. We apologize profusely for the inconvenience caused to all of you,” the official mail shared by a Twitter user read.

The department of humanities and social sciences, IIT-Bombay, had earlier called for papers for the conference and said that the event aims to “bring together scholars engaged in identifying and examining the histories of the cultural practices of the political left in modern India”.

“The mainstream communist parties in India have been generative of and have relied on debates and practices in the realm of art and imagination. The work of theater groups, practitioners, writers, film-makers, visual artists, and creative producers, cultural theorists- sometimes directly affiliated to Communist parties, sometimes independent--has provided a crucial ground for it,” the official notice read.

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Tagging Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, a Twitter user wrote, “It is really sad that a conference about to be held on the subject "Cultures of the Political Left in Modern India" by the HSS dept IITB was forced to be cancelled as per the directive from the IITB director.”

Legal Rights Observatory said it will write to education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and ministry of education "to investigate how much IIT funds spoiled on planning n from whom it would b compensated!"

Leftist event in IIT @iitbombay cancelled!
Still #LRO wil write 2 @dpradhanbjp @EduMinOfIndia to investigate how much IIT funds spoiled on planning n from whom it would b compensated!
Needless to say leftist culture is synonymous with everything anti India n anti Hindu! @AmitShah pic.twitter.com/sssvCpSChQ

— Legal Rights Observatory- LRO (@LegalLro) December 11, 2022

Another user said, “A hallowed institution of eminence cannot hold a conference on the political cultures of the left because the Director has said so. The event was due tomorrow. Some delegates may have already arrived.”

A hallowed institution of eminence cannot hold a conference on the political cultures of the left because the Director has said so. The event was due tomorrow. Some delegates may have already arrived. pic.twitter.com/Sy0fHomqrx

— Swati Moitra (@swatiatrest) December 11, 2022

“Ministry of Education, Govt of India orders cancellation of iit Bombay conference on cultures of political left in india. Shame on academic censorship.”

Ministry of Education, Govt of India orders cancellation of iit Bombay conference on cultures of political left in india. Shame on academic censorship. @RanaAyyub @ShekharGupta @thewire_in @zoo_bear @Nidhi @SitaramYechury pic.twitter.com/kO8wjiZWKI

— Virtual wanderer (@WandererVirtual) December 11, 2022