•Vandita Mishra: Your academic council has expressed anguish over the kind of attention the University has been getting. What is it about the current situation that disturbs you the most?

All of us are appalled by the fact that the action of two or three students of the university has brought such disrepute to an institution which has consistently stood by all the values that are dear to all of us and which are enshrined in the Constitution. What is really amazing is that if a secular institution with a secular record can be targeted so easily, what will be the fate of non-secular institutions? I feel very, very distressed. I have no reason to believe that the character of the institution has changed or that its commitment has been diluted in any way. Absolutely not. We are completely secular. We don’t even ask our students about their religion in their application form. There is no preference for Muslims per se and a large number of the teachers are non-Muslims. A large number of students who are non-Muslims have never experienced any sense of discrimination.

The role of the media has also been distressing. We all value freedom of expression but I think the way the electronic media, especially, has behaved is extremely alarming. Very often, there is no story and yet a story is invented. In this particular instance, the TV OB vans landed up in large numbers and virtually instigated students to say something. It’s as though you expect a Muslim student to say something that would project the image of ‘the Muslim’. And when that Muslim makes a liberal or a secular statement, that statement will seldom find mention because that statement is of no interest. A liberal and secular Muslim is not someone you can sell in the market.

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