JNU professor Rohit Azad withdraws from SAU event in solidarity with suspended professors, students

NEW DELHI: Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor Rohit Azad, who was invited to deliver a talk at the South Asian University (SAU), has withdrawn his name from the event in solidarity with two of his colleagues and students “who have kept up the resistance at SAU”.

Rohit Azad, faculty at the Centre for Studies in Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, was invited to talk on “The Political Economy of Climate Change” on April 9, 2025. The seminar series is being organised by the Department of Sociology.

He clarified that his decision to withdraw from the event is not targeted at the academic departments or the colleagues. “My decision instead is to do with the apathy and authoritarianism shown by the SAU administration,” he said in a statement.

Condemning the suspension of four professors on June 16, 2023, for questioning the administration’s “arbitrary decisions”, the JNU professor said: “Instead of trying to resolve the matters, things have been precipitated by the university. In this instance, the Indian faculty were the ones who drew the ire of the administration for holding independent opinions that did not coincide with the diktats of the university administration. But it did not stop there.”

The four faculty members who were suspended by the SAU administration are - Snehashish Bhattacharya, faculty of economics; Srinivas Burra, faculty of legal studies; Irfanullah Farooqi, department of sociology, faculty of social science; and Ravi Kumar, department of sociology, faculty of social science.

He also alleged that the university “forced” a renowned sociologist, an international faculty member from one of the SAARC countries, to resign from the university.

The professor also criticised the SAU administration for “turning a blind eye” to the recent communal assault on women students of the university during a clash between two student organisations allegedly for serving non-vegetarian food on Maha Shivratri.