New JNU VC denies ownership of controversial Twitter account

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After her appointment was announced on Monday, the account, which used her full name and description as a professor, caused widespread outrage on Twitter

The newly appointed Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit has distanced herself from a controversial Twitter account in her name a day after her appointment. In a response on Tuesday to The Hindu’s query about whether the unverified handle @SantishreeD belonged to her, she said “Not mine”.

After Dr. Pandit’s appointment was announced on Monday, the account, which used her full name and description as a professor, caused widespread outrage on Twitter. Screenshots of tweets using communal language and name-calling students, farmers, politicians and activists went viral on social media. The account grew from 500 to about 5000 followers over the course of the day, but was deleted by evening.
Dr. Pandit did not respond to further queries from The Hindu on whether she was aware of who was using the account and whether she had requested its deletion.

‘Extremist naxal groups’

The account included tweets referring to a section of JNU teachers and students as “losers” and “extremist naxal groups” who should be banned from campuses. The tweet added that funding should be stopped for prestigious educational institutions such as St. Stephen’s College and Jamia Millia Islamia University, referring to them as “communal campuses”.

One tweet indicated that speaking Sanskrit was being “civilisationally Hindu”, while another referred to an Indian Christian as a “rice bag convert. Tweets termed so-called “love jihad” a “terror by other means”, Sunni Islam radical. Several Muslims and civil society activists were termed jihadists, with a tweet advocating that they be dealt with “as the Chinese do”.

Criticism of China

China also came in for a lot of flak, being termed a “rogue nation”. Tweets referred to COVID-19 as the China virus and accused the country of “bioterror” and “biowarfare” to gain hegemony and to destroy the Indian economy. In late April 2020, tweets termed media reports of the brutal second wave of COVID-19 “fear psychosis”.

In domestic politics, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi was repeatedly referred to as an “Italian remote control” and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal a “pathological liar”, with a tweet adding that no Hindu must vote for him. Protesting farm unions were described as parasitic middlemen, riffraff and liars.

Earlier, in a tweet congratulating Dr. Pandit for making history as the first woman VC appointed in JNU’s 50th anniversary year, Manish Dabhade, an assistant professor at the university’s School of International Studies, thanked RSS leaders as well as the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, Education Minister for “scripting” the appointment. “JNU is indeed in safe, competent hands now with this brilliant mind at its helm,” he added.

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