The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
DU cancels Palestine poetry event ‘at last minute’: Organisers
A POETRY event on the Palestinian crisis scheduled for Monday at Delhi University’s Arts Faculty was cancelled at the last minute by varsity officials, despite the venue being confirmed a few weeks ago, claimed the organisers.
The event, ‘ Let us hear a Palestinian word’, had poet Ashok Vajpeyi as a speaker and was scheduled to take place in room no. 22 in the Arts Faculty building. Earlier, the event was to be held on March 22; confirmation was granted by the DU Estate Section on March 19 through an email requesting a payment of Rs 5,000 as booking charges. However, since March 22 was declared as a non-teaching day due to Holi, The Indian Express has learnt, the organisers had to reschedule it to April 15 (Monday). For this date too, they received confirmation of the availability of the venue from the Dean, Faculty of Arts.
Speaking to The Indian Express, one of the organisers said: “Permission was taken well in advance. What was unusual was that it was cancelled at the last moment by the Estate Office. This was informed to us on Saturday, post which we had to cancel the event.” The Indian Express also learnt that the Estate Section communicated to the organisers on Saturday that the request for their booking of the venue for the event was not approved.
On Sunday, the organisers wrote an email to DU Registrar Vikas Gupta stating that the Dean of Arts Faculty had granted permission to use the premises even afterpostponingtheeventtoapril 15. The Indian Express reached out to R P Singh, Joint Registrar (Estate), for comment but he refused saying he wasn’t aware of this particular event. The Indian Expressalsoreachedouttogupta for his comment on the organiser'sconveyingtheirconcernsregarding this to him, to which he stated that he wasn’t aware as he was preoccupied with other engagements on Monday.
Meanwhile, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Amitava Chakraborty, said: “The Dean can only recommend events that professors or heads of departments would like to hold which fall under the Faculty of Arts. My office checks available rooms and recommends those that can be used. The final say comes from the Estate Department.”