GUWAHATI: Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit will be the first woman Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) with the Ministry of Education (MoE) appointing her to the top post on Monday.
Pandit is currently the Vice-Chancellor of Savitribai Phule University in Maharashtra.
However, hours after the announcement, Santishree’s old tweets were shared on Twitter and most of them contained derogatory comments about religious minorities in India.
In multiple tweets, screenshots of which were circulated on social media, Santishree refers to Muslims as ‘Jihadis’ and called Christians ‘rice bag converts’ — both derogatory terms.
In other tweets, she also praised Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and praised Nathuram Godse.
Soon, the screenshots went viral and she began to receive widespread condemnation.
In another tweet, she also referred to JNU students as ‘losers’ and ‘Naxal groups.’
By Monday evening, her Twitter account was deactivated.
59-year-old Pandit is herself an alumna of JNU where she pursued her MPhil as well as Ph.D. in International Relations.
Pandit began her teaching career at Goa University in 1988 and moved to Pune University in 1993.
She has held administrative positions in various academic bodies. She has also been a member of the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and the Visitor’s nominee to central universities.
M Jagadesh Kumar, who was holding the charge of acting VC at JNU after his five-year term ended last year, was last week appointed as the chairman of the UGC.