JAMMU, Mar 20: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad on Friday staged protests at the University of Jammu, demanding the withdrawal of a chapter on Muhammad Ali Jinnah included in the revised postgraduate political science syllabus under the National Education Policy 2020.
Led by ABVP Jammu and Kashmir secretary Sannak Shrivats, activists assembled on the campus, raised slogans against the administration and sought immediate removal of the chapter from the “Modern Indian Political Thought” module under the paper “Minorities and the Nation.”
Protesters also tore posters of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and warned of intensifying agitation if the content is not withdrawn.
“Our government should take note that the Department of Political Science at Jammu University has released its syllabus for 2026–2028. In it, certain individuals, including Jinnah and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, are being presented as representatives of minorities. These figures were associated with the partition and the Two-Nation Theory. Teaching about them raises concerns,” an ABVP leader said.
Shrivats said academic freedom should not disregard national sentiments and termed the decision “unacceptable” to students, warning of a wider democratic agitation across Jammu and Kashmir if the inclusion is not revoked.
However, the university defended the syllabus, stating that the inclusion of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and other thinkers is part of standard academic curricula followed across the country and aligns with University Grants Commission guidelines.
Head of the Political Science Department Baljit Singh Mann said the syllabus includes a range of thinkers such as Muhammad Iqbal, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, M S Golwalkar, Mahatma Gandhi, B R Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel.
He emphasised that the university does not promote any ideology but presents diverse perspectives to enable critical evaluation by students.
“Our objective is to present different viewpoints so that students can assess their merits and demerits. This is an academic exercise, not advocacy,” Mann said.
He added that excluding such topics could disadvantage students appearing for competitive examinations like the National Eligibility Test (NET), as these thinkers form part of University Grants Commission-recommended syllabi followed by universities nationwide.
The university also clarified that the syllabus had been approved by a committee and was not an individual decision, maintaining that studying the evolution of ideas of such historical figures is important for academic understanding.
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