‘Saffronisation’? IIMC accused of dropping journalist’s course over ‘shallow’ mainstream media remark

Shweta Kothari was told her 16 Dec class on media ethics was cancelled for a 'students' event'. An IIMC alumnus alleges a faculty member made disparaging remarks about the journalist.

Indian Institute of Mass Communication | Facebook

New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) in Delhi has found itself at the centre of a controversy amid allegations that it barred a journalist from teaching a media ethics course as visiting faculty, seemingly over her social media post criticising mainstream media.

ThePrint reached the institute’s Director General, Sanjay Dwivedi, but he refused to comment on the allegations, claiming that classroom lectures fall outside his purview. Attempts to reach other senior IIMC officials for comment proved to be similarly unsuccessful.

 

Last Thursday, former managing editor of The Logical Indian Shweta Kothari tweeted that she would be teaching a course on the “role, ethics and responsibility of media” to post-graduate journalism students of IIMC Delhi. However, soon after she held her inaugural class, she was informed that her next lesson, scheduled for 16 December, had been cancelled due to a “students’ event”.

In an exciting update, I start teaching at @IIMC_India, Delhi this week.

At a time when mainstream media has become loud and shallow, I will be teaching ‘role, ethics and responsibilities’ of media to postgraduate students of journalism. pic.twitter.com/H7hs1pVwgD

— Shweta Kothari (@Shwkothari) December 8, 2022

Meanwhile, an IIMC alumnus, freelance journalist Hrishikesh Sharma, in a Twitter post flagging “saffronisation” of the institute, claimed that Kothari’s course had likely been scrapped after a faculty member chanced upon one of her tweets referring to the mainstream media as “loud and shallow”.

This tweet is about @Shwkothari and saffronisation of IIMC, a premier media institute. Shweta is one of those few credible faces in media fraternity today. She has worked in multiple TV channels as well as the Managing Editor of The Logical Indian. pic.twitter.com/g7gIRPdvob

— Hrishikesh Sharma (@hrishikesh____) December 10, 2022

The faculty member — who Sharma identified as Hindi programme director Rakesh Upadhyay — then allegedly passed disparaging remarks about Kothari while showing the tweet to Hindi journalism students, questioning whether she had ever worked in mainstream media, and how she could write “against the government or PM” when she was coming to teach at a “government institute” where she would “get salary from the government only”.

This, Sharma told ThePrint, was relayed to him by some students.

Speaking to ThePrint, Kothari said that while she had never heard the alleged remarks directly, she had reached out to IIMC’s radio & TV journalism course director but received “no clarification” on whether she will get to resume teaching the course. She also said that a student had told her that no other lectures scheduled for 16 December — barring hers — had been cancelled.

Kothari has also tweeted about the allegations, expressing fear for the “future of our students”.

Of a series of tweets she posted on the matter, one said: “I hope every journalist passing out of @IIMC_India questions the ruling government. Questions their own fraternity for not doing its job well. That will be an answer enough. As for me, I draw my salary from my job, not from the government. Men like that don’t scare me.”

Another tweet expressed hope that IIMC Director General Dwivedi would take cognisance of the matter, adding that “misogyny and hatred have no place in classrooms”.

I hope @ProfSanjay_IIMC sir will show the way and take cognisance of the matter.

This is not about me, this is about the future of @IIMC_India students. Misogyny and hatred have no place in classrooms. https://t.co/UDFcnajZqn

— Shweta Kothari (@Shwkothari) December 10, 2022

I am told a certain prof Upadhaya opened my Twitter in his class of 50 students at @IIMC_India after my Lecture and tried to shame me. For what? Doing my job as a journalist?

I fear for the future of our students. https://t.co/WeowOSa4ks

— Shweta Kothari (@Shwkothari) December 10, 2022

Young, gullible students at @IIMC_India are being told – not to question the government or speak on religious issues, otherwise they would not get placed in media.

And that is where the future of journalism in India is headed. pic.twitter.com/jfCGXhIjdm

— Shweta Kothari (@Shwkothari) December 10, 2022

‘Targeted my ideology’

Speaking to ThePrint, Kothari said the remarks, if indeed made by Upadhyay, felt damaging as they “targeted her ideology — accountability and speaking truth to power”, she further said. 

Emphasising that his tweets were not politically motivated nor associated with any other organisation, alumnus Sharma told ThePrint that other alumni have also raised questions about the matter.

 

“We don’t have any personal grudge with anyone in the administration. If these things happen again, we’ll speak for sure as a concerned alumni of IIMC,” he added.

 

On Friday, Kothari tweeted that she had started teaching the Master’s programme in Convergent Journalism at Jamia Millia Islamia’s A.J. Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre.

(Edited by Gitanjali Das)