Historians, including Romila Thapar and Bipin Chandra, gave a miss to the talk organised by the Forum for Academic Freedom, on The Ramayanas, Version and Subversions. The forum is dominated by Left-wing teachers of Delhi University.

These are the teachers who have been protesting against the Delhi University’s decision of withdrawing the essay ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas’ written by eminent historian RK Ramanujan, from the undergraduate History syllabus. Speakers at the talk condemned the supremacy of the North Indian version of the Ramayana and insisted that there were many other versions of the text which should be studied.

Romila Thapar, eminent historian who was earlier scheduled to speak at the talk organised at the Arts faculty of Delhi University, gave a miss on Wednesday. Former DUTA president and retired Delhi University Professor Murli Mahohar Prasad Singh remained the key speaker on  the occasion.

Singh who spoke on the Jain and the Prakrit version of the Ramayana insisted that the Ramanujan’s essay was included in the syllabus to make the history curriculum inter-disciplinary in nature and help the students build an understanding of the culture anthropology of the South East Asian countries.

Other speakers on the occasion included Professor Kesavan Veluthat, Department of History, Vishwanath Tripathi of Hindi Department.