New Delhi: Various societies at the Oxford University in the UK have denied student leader Rashmi Samant’s charge that she was asked to resign as the students’ union president due to her religious beliefs.
The comments come as the controversy over Samant deepened after External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha earlier this week. He said India can’t ever turn its “eyes away from racism”, adding it will take up such matters with the UK when required.
Samant, who was elected president of the Oxford University Students’ Union (OUSU) president in February, was asked to quit amid allegations of insensitive social media posts she had made in the past.
Speaking to ThePrint Thursday, Anvee Bhutani, the incoming chairperson of Oxford’s Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality (CRAE) said: “Samant’s nationality or religion were never brought into the conversation, apart from when she brought them in herself, and this wasn’t a plot to try and conspire to remove her from office.”
Bhutani added: “The past two OUSU presidents have been women of colour and the current sabbatical team is also all women of colour, including other Indian and Hindu women.”
Earlier this month, the Oxford University Hindu Society had also released a statement on Facebook rejecting the charge that the institution is intolerant towards Hindus.
“Recent coverage of these events in Indian media have distorted the focus… from Ms Samant’s evasion of accountability to the subsequent Hinduphobia that has been prompted. We believe that diverting the focus away from the harm of Ms Samant’s actions and instead portraying the Oxford student community as a brutally intolerant place projects a false narrative,” the statement read.
In an earlier interview to ThePrint, Samant had said foreign universities should have regulations to protect students of colour from being “cancelled”.
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‘Anti-semitic, racist and transphobic’ social media posts
The 22-year-old Rashmi Samant, who hails from Udupi in Karnataka, became the first Indian woman to be elected as OUSU president on 11 February. She won 1,966 out of a possible 3,708 votes in the election.
In her manifesto, Samant had proposed “decolonisation of syllabi”, removing all statues on campus found to be imperialist, tackling institutional homophobia and transphobia, and improving access to better-quality mental health resources.
However, she had to step down on 16 February after some of her old social media posts emerged, which were called anti-semitic, racist and transphobic.
In one post, she had captioned a photo from Malaysia, “Ching Chang”. In another photo of her posing outside a Berlin Holocaust Memorial, the caption was perceived to be a pun on the Holocaust. It read: “The memorial *CASTS* a *HOLLOW* dream of the past atrocities and deeds.”
Samant was also accused of separating “women” and “transwomen” in the caption of a post uploaded before the election, which was perceived as transphobic.
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Samant’s ‘failure to take accountability’ led to resignation
Rashmi Samant later apologised in an open letter. However, CRAE and other Oxford societies deemed the apology inadequate and called for her resignation.
In her interview to ThePrint, Samant claimed: “Had I looked a certain way, then I am sure I would have been given the benefit of doubt… In my case they immediately rushed to conclusions. Racism now does not exist overtly but in covert behaviour like this.”
However, CRAE’s Bhutani defended the institution, highlighting that a candidate in Samant’s election who was initially a frontrunner, Pierce Jones, had to drop out of the race after allegations of racism were made against him.
Bhutani emphasised that racism allegations are taken “extremely seriously” by the student body, and it was Samant’s “failure to take accountability” that ultimately led to calls for resignation.
Oxford faculty member’s ‘Sanatan Dharma’ post
Abhijit Sarkar, a postdoctoral history researcher at New College, Oxford, has also come under scrutiny for his social media posts about Samant’s parents. He had said that followers of ‘Sanatan Dharma’ of Hinduism should not be allowed to become OUSU leaders.
On Instagram, he posted a picture of Samant’s family members, claiming they were “celebrating the destruction of a mosque and the establishment of a Hindu temple in its place”.
@UniofOxford as a former Visiting Fellow at Oxford I find faculty exhibiting views like this overtly against my faith indeed any faith, obscene offensive and probably criminal incitement to hatred. No Vice Chancellor should permit this. pic.twitter.com/kxEwyGsf0k
— Alpesh B. Patel (@alpeshbp) March 1, 2021
In its statement earlier this month, the Oxford University Hindu Society disapproved of Sarkar’s behaviour, demanded he apologise to Samant and resign from his position as a member of the university’s faculty.
In an interview with Republic TV Monday, Samant also called for Sarkar’s resignation, adding: “He found it suitable to stalk, harass and publicly defame me because I’m a Hindu… To make it all worse, my parents were the topic of the conversation.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing Friday demanded the Oxford University take action against those who made “hateful remarks” on the faith of Samant’s parents.
(Edited by Amit Upadhyaya)
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