New JNU Vice Chancellor’s Note Littered With Grammatical Errors, Social Media Users Question Appointment

Bhubaneswar: Barely a day after her appointment, Jawaharlal University’s first woman Vice-Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit courted controversy after social media users, including BJP leader Varun Gandhi, pointed out grammatical errors in her press release thanking the Prime Minister and Ministry of Education.

“This press release from the new JNU VC is an exhibition of illiteracy, littered with grammatical mistakes (would strive vs will strive; students friendly vs student-friendly; excellences vs excellence). Such mediocre appointments serve to damage our human capital & our youth’s future,” tweeted Varun Gandhi, who also shared a copy of the press release.

This press release from the new JNU VC is an exhibition of illiteracy,littered with grammatical mistakes (would strive vs will strive;students friendly vs student-friendly;excellences vs excellence).Such mediocre appointments serve to damage our human capital & our youth’s future pic.twitter.com/tSanmy3VfR

— Varun Gandhi (@varungandhi80) February 8, 2022

 “The immediate focus of this administration would (will) be to provide clean administration, students friendly (student-friendly) and gender sensitive (gender-sensitive) environment for academic excellences (excellence)…(sic),” read the statement issued by Pandit.

Several other Twitter users flagged the errors and questioned the appointment.

“Wonder how many nations appoint people who have trouble stringing together two grammatical sentences to head one of their leading universities. And in how many of those nations does a section of the population applaud the choice?” tweeted Sadanand Dhume.

Wonder how many nations appoint people who have trouble stringing together two grammatical sentences to head one of their leading universities. And in how many of those nations does a section of the population applaud the choice? #JNU https://t.co/9IGlrgnbDr

— Sadanand Dhume (@dhume) February 7, 2022

1. Should someone who lacks proficiency in English head a university with English as the medium of instruction? 2. If you think they should (I don’t), then they should communicate in their native language. Better to write clearly in Tamil/Hindi than to spout gibberish in English. pic.twitter.com/OMB21KxxaL

— Sadanand Dhume (@dhume) February 7, 2022

Earlier, Pandit had allegedly deactivated her unverified Twitter handle after some of her old posts—which were apparently in agreement with the right-wing ideology—went viral on social media.

One of the old posts from the unverified Twitter account of Pandit had stated that Mahatma Gandhi and Nathuram Godse took ‘opposite lessons from Gita’.  “Godse thought the action was important and identified a solution for a united India in the assassination of one person Mahatma Gandhi. Sad,” the tweet read.

Some other posts supported calls for razing mosques and played up right-wing propaganda, including ‘love jihad.’