CAA may be part of Lucknow University Pol Science syllabus

In the midst of ongoing protests against the amended citizenship law, Lucknow University's Political Science Department has proposed including the issue as a topic in its curriculum, drawing flak from the BSP.

"We, in our department, teach the Constitution and citizenship. This is one of the contemporary issues in Indian politics. We want to teach it to our students," Political Science Department HOD Shashi Shukla said on Friday.

"As of now, it is at the stage of a proposal. Then it will pass through the entire academic process before it becomes a part of the syllabus," she told PTI.

There is a lot of debate underway on this topic, she said.

"Especially, our students come to us saying they are asked about it everywhere. This makes us think that it should be included as one of the many topics," Shukla said.

"It will, however, take some time. If approved by academic bodies, it can be included by next year," she added.

Noting that the department teaches about citizenship and the Constitution, Shukla said the issue was not being introduced as a course.

"We have a paper on Indian politics in which we teach contemporary issues. This time we will include it also. It is just a proposal mooted by the faculty members," she said.

"We felt there is a need for our students to be informed about it in an objective manner and hence we have proposed introduction of CAA as a topic," she said.

To a query, Shukla clarified that it would only be a topic in the syllabus and not a separate subject or paper.

"Students had proposed a debate on this issue during our annual debate competition in the Political Science Department in which we call affiliated degree colleges as well as students of the university," she said.

The topic of the debate will be 'CAA in favour of India' and it will be held on February 15.

"A lot of people are debating on the subject. Our students should also understand various aspects of the CAA. Hence it was resolved to have a debate on the issue next month," she said.

BSP president Mayawati, however, said the proposal was "completely wrong and unfair" when the matter was being heard in court.

In a tweet, she said, "The debate on CAA is fine but when the court hearing is going on, the inclusion of this highly controversial and divisive citizenship law by the Lucknow University in its curriculum is completely wrong and unfair. The BSP strongly opposes this and will definitely roll it back when it comes to power in UP."

In 2017, Lucknow University became probably the first state-run university in UP to start a six-month certificate course on Goods and Services Tax (GST) from academic session 2017-18. The faculty of commerce was asked to initiate the course.

The decision to start the GST course was taken at the vice chancellor's conference in order to create a workforce of GST-trained professionals.