IIT Bombay faculty members back colleague over ‘false’ HAMAS support

The teachers association has stated that the allegations made in social media about her supporting HAMAS or terrorists are based on misinformation and falsehood.

The Faculty Forum of IIT Bombay has condemned calls to violence against one of the faculty members of the institute colleague over the use of her photograph and name in the hoardings, and false claims that she supports HAMAS and terrorism.

The faculty forum has condemned the actions of some people who are tarnishing the image of IIT Bombay's female faculty reputation in print, TV and social media through biased information and false claims that she supports HAMAS and terrorism.

Issuing a statement, the Faculty Forum has stated that it is absolutely distressed by the tarnishing of the reputation and physical threats to one of our colleagues, Prof. Sharmistha Saha, Assistant Professor at IIT Bombay via anonymous phone calls, and posts on Social Media platforms.

“The allegations made in social media about her supporting HAMAS or terrorists are based on misinformation and falsehood. The Faculty Forum of IIT Bombay firmly expresses its support to our colleague Prof. Sharmistha Saha of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of IIT Bombay,” reads the statement.

The association has also shared some facts about the incident based on their detailed discussion with her which states that a documentary film titled “Arna’s Children” was screened by her as a part of an ongoing post-graduate course, due to its relevance in the art of healing children who have gone through trauma. This film and the scheduled discussion thereafter had been relevant to the course.

Arna’s Children is a 2004 documentary film about The Freedom Theatre founded by two Jewish theatre personalities (Arna Khamis and Israeli actor/filmmaker Juliano Mer Khamis). The film has won several awards at international levels and is also freely available on YouTube.

Sudhanva Deshpande was invited as a guest speaker for introducing the relevance of the film to the audience, and for the post-screening discussion. He is a theatre personality and is currently associated with Jana Natya Manch (JANAM), which has collaborated in the past with The Freedom Theatre.

It was stated that during a regular class of the course, a student, who was not part of the course, started recording the lecture session on his mobile device. The course Faculty Forum instructor told him not to record the lecture, and to leave the class, but he refused to cooperate and instead spoke to her aggressively.

The forum backing the faculty member has stated that during the entire session, our colleague neither expressed any opinion about terrorism nor did she express any opinion about HAMAS. She was not able to respond either to the film or to the comments made by Deshpande because of the intimidating atmosphere prevailing in the class.

The recording (which was made despite her explicit denial) was put up on social media posts and was also shown on some TV channels. Further, a gathering of people outside the IIT Bombay Main gate was organized on Saturday, 11 November 2023, in which people shouted slogans and carried large hoardings containing the names and photographs of our colleagues. They shouted slogans mentioning our colleague as a traitor, issuing death threats to her, and calling for her termination from service at IIT Bombay.

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