Special Correspondent
Srinagar
Citing ‘ethical reasons’, Dr Rajendran Narayanan, the assistant professor at Ashoka University who signed a petition which condemned the violence over militant Burhan Wani’s death and called for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, has resigned from the Sonepat institution’s mathematics department, reports The Indian Express.
Narayanan, according to reports quit on December 15 2016 and the resignation was accepted by the university’s governing body within two days.
Narayanan’s decision followed the resignations of two members of the administrative staff — Saurav Goswami, deputy manager of academic affairs, and Adil Mushtaq Shah, programme manager of academic affairs — which had sparked a debate over curbs on freedom of speech on campus.
Of the 88 signatories, Narayanan, Shah and Goswami were the only three employees who had endorsed the Kashmir petition in July 2016.
Narayan is quoted to have said, “I resigned on ethical grounds. I feel that if a ‘crime’ has been committed, then everybody who committed the crime should face the same consequences, irrespective of their status or position.”
He further added that “it should not happen that you and I do the same thing and because I have a slightly more privileged access to justice, I’m let off, but you face the consequences for the exact same crime. That to me is not acceptable, at least in a place that professes to be democratic and liberal. So this whole idea of differential access to fairness is something I denounce,”
