Kolkata:A professor of Jadavpur University has been subjected to casteist attacks on social media for a post about conducting final semester exams during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jadavpur University Teachers Association (JUTA) and All Bengal University Teachers Association (ABUTA) on Sunday condemned the "vicious casteist trolling" of Maroona Murmu, an associate professor of history of JU for an innocuous post on Facebook.
On September 2, Murmu was subjected to a volley of casteist abuse on social media when she wrote in a Facebook post about the need to postpone the final semester exams as "one year cannot be more precious than someone's entire life."
This triggered a comment by a third-year student of Bethune College on her wall that "such thinking stems from the quota-centric state of mind" implying that Murmu had academically benefitted being a tribal.
A hurt Murmu, who did her undergraduate studies at Presidency College before doing research at JNU, expressed anguish in her reply how her opinion as an individual was ignored by a female student and wondered if someone can be called incompetent and undeserving if he/she carries a tribal surname.
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This invited more trolling as many others supported the young third-year student of Bethune College while support also poured in for the professor.
The Bethune College Students'' Committee posted a statement on social media saying, "it is extremely disheartening and condemnable that a student of our college is still unaware of the caste dynamics in India and the need of reservations for the underprivileged. The incident in question is extremely shameful and has brought the institution into disrepute.