Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, staged an agitation that forced Chaudhary Charan Singh University (CCSU) in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, to permanently bar a senior professor from all examination and evaluation duties for allegedly including objectionable questions in an exam for second-year undergraduate students.
Professor Seema Panwar, head of the Political Science department at Meerut College—a prominent, government-funded institution—faced disciplinary action for questions on the rise of the RSS, with one of the choices suggesting it was due to religious and caste-based politics, and one of the answers to a question mentioning the RSS along with the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Naxalites, The Indian Express reported.
The CCSU administration convened a meeting to deliberate on the matter and concluded that the questions violated academic propriety, even though they originated from material available within the prescribed syllabus.
Despite the professor's claim that the options reflected textbook content and followed university guidelines, the university decided to impose a strict penalty, citing the principle that subject experts are expected to frame examination papers within acceptable academic norms.
The university emphasised that it does not normally scrutinise question papers created by selected experts, as it relies on their subject knowledge and integrity. Nevertheless, the administration considered the questions sensitive enough to warrant lifetime debarment from academic duties related to examinations.
Professor Panwar, who has over two decades of teaching experience, submitted an apology and maintained that the questions were drawn from curriculum-authorised textbooks, but this did not deter the university from enforcing the disciplinary action.