Jihadi Terror Only Form of Fundamentalist Religious Terror: JNU's New Course

The optional course on counter-terrorism will be offered to engineering students studying a dual-degree programme.

JNU campus.

(Photo Courtesy: JNU)

A new course introduced on counter-terrorism for engineering students studying a dual-degree programme at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi notes that "Jihadi terrorism" is the only form of “fundamentalist-religious terrorism”, The Indian Express reported.

The optional course, titled as 'Counter Terrorism, Asymmetric Conflicts and Strategies for Cooperation among Major Powers’, which will be available to students studying MS with International Relations as specialisation after pursuing bachelor in engineering, further asserts that the Communist governments in the then Soviet Union and China were the “predominant state-sponsors of terrorism that influenced radical Islamic states”.

The Teachers' Association of JNU claimed that the varsity’s Academic Council meeting conducted on 17 August, in which the course was cleared, allowed no discussion.

“The exploitation of the cyberspace by the radical Islamic religious clerics has resulted in the electronic propagation of jihadi terrorism world over. Online electronic dissemination of Jihadi terrorism has resulted in the spurt of violence in non-Islamic societies that are secular and are now increasingly vulnerable to the violence that (is) on the increase," one of the optional course's modules titled ‘Fundamentalist-religious Terrorism and its Impact’ mentions, The Indian Express report added.

Speaking to the media outlet, Arvind Kumar, chairperson of the Centre for Canadian, US and Latin American Studies said that he had designed the new course.

Asked about the reference to only one religion in the module on 'fundamentalist-religious terrorism', he said it was "because Islamic terrorism is a world-accepted thing. After the Taliban (taking of Afghanistan), it has gained momentum now", The Indian Express report stated.

He added: "To the best of my knowledge I haven't seen an example of any other religion making use of terrorism."

DU Drops Mahasweta Devi's 'Draupadi'

While JNU introduced a new course, on 24 August, the University of Delhi came under fire for removing Bengali scholar Mahasweta Devi's seminal short story Draupadi from its present syllabus for BA English (honours) course.

Later, the university said that its syllabus for the course is 'inclusive' and called issues highlighted by 'a section of the media' regarding the said content 'misplaced and unfounded'.

The works of two other Dalit women writers, Sukirtharini and Bama, have also been dropped from the syllabus by DU's Oversight Committee (OC).

(With inputs from The Indian Express)