Row Over Absence of BHU Founder, Picture of Urdu Poet in Poster of Webinar

While the Arts Department issued an apology, the head of the Urdu department has been served a notice.

Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

(Photo: BHU website)

The head of Banaras Hindu University (BHU)'s Urdu department issued an apology on Monday, 8 November, after controversy erupted over the picture of Pakistani poet Allama Iqbal Masoodi in a poster designed for a webinar on Urdu Day and the absence of the University's founder Madan Mohan Malaviya from the same.

After outrage on social media and objection by several students affiliated with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Head of Department (HOD) Prof Aftab Ahmad publicly issued an apology.

Following the controversy, the Dean of the Arts department, Vijay Bahadur Singh also issued an apology on social media.

"Urdu Department, Faculty of Arts, #BHU, is organizing a webinar as per the details given in the poster. Sincerest apologies for the inadvertent mistake in the earlier poster that went viral on social media (sic)," the department said.

In a press release issued later, the BHU said that Ahmad has been served with a notice over the matter and a committee has been formed under KM Pandey, the head of English Department, to submit a report in the matter within three days.

Speaking to The Indian Express (IE), Iqbal said that he had not seen the poster before the students shared it. Commenting on the controversy over Masoodi being a Pakistani poet, Ahmad said that he had died in 1938, years before the Partition.