JNU's first woman VC runs into Tweet row

Savitribai Phule University vice chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit was on Monday appointed the first woman vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her appointment, however, created a row after social media users highlighted that several of her tweets were derogatory.

Her Twitter account was deleted soon, but not before Twitter users managed screenshots of controversial tweets. Pandit's tweets include one were Sunnis were called "radical", while another said, "mentally ill Jihadists," and hailed China's treatment of Muslims. On Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, Pandit said Nathuram Godse "thought action was important and identified the solution for a united India," Tweets also referred to student organisations of JNU as "losers from JNU" and "extremist Naxal groups." She also called farmers protesting against the erstwhile laws "parasitic middlemen."

A firm supporter of the RSS and its work in university campuses, Pandit has been involved with think tanks such as India Foundation and Rambhau Mhlagi Prabodhini Foundation. She is an alumnus of JNU, where she pursued her MPhil and PhD in International Relations. She began her teaching career at Goa University in 1988 and moved to Pune University in 1993. She held administrative positions in UGC and ICSSR and has been a visitor's nominee to central universities. She succeeds M Jagadesh Kumar, whose tenure saw violent clashes between students and faculty members with the university administration. Delhi Police arrested JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, and student activists such as Umar Khalid in 2016 on charges of sedition during his tenure.