Calicut varsity’s Board of Studies, academic council to take final call on exclusion of Vedan’s song from syllabus

The Board of Studies (BoS) for undergraduate courses and the academic council of the University of Calicut are expected to take a final call on the proposed exclusion of a song by rapper Hirandas Murali (Vedan) in the syllabus of the four-year BA (Malayalam) course.

M.M. Basheer, former head of the Department of Malayalam, University of Calicut, was recently asked by Vice-Chancellor P. Raveendran to look into the complaints over the inclusion of Mr. Murali’s song Bhumi Njan Vazhunna Idam and Michael Jackson’s song They don’t care about us in the third semester of the course for a comparative study. Mr. Basheer had also suggested that the comparative study of Kathakali music and Carnatic music citing singer Gowri Lakshmi’s rendition of Ajitha Hare Madhava...could also be removed from the syllabus.

Nothing political

Mr. Raveendran told the media on Saturday that there was nothing political about the proposals and it was an academic issue. He pointed out that the core question was whether students learning Malayalam literature should engage in a comparative study of music. “I have forwarded Mr. Basheer’s proposal to the BoS,” he said. The board and later the academic council would take a call on the issue, Mr. Raveendran added.

Chaos at Senate meeting

Meanwhile, a Senate meeting held on the day ended up in chaos after members affiliated to Left parties, Congress, and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) raised slogans highlighting various demands. While the pro-Left members protested against the move to exclude Mr. Murali’s song from the syllabus and the “unauthorised grant of marks” to a students’ union leader at “the behest of the V-C,” pro-Congress members and pro-IUML raised slogans against the alleged assault on staff during a recent protest by the Students Federation of India on the university campus and also sought steps to address the concerns over selection of minor (subsidiary) courses.