New Delhi [India], January 9 : Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vice Chancellor, Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit expressed pride in the institution's role in providing reliable data research for various real-life policy impact issues in the country.
Speaking to ANI, the Professor highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's request to institutions for reliable data.
"JNU supports all in academic work and research work in this country, done on the basis of reliable data. The Prime Minister has also been asking all institutions, higher education institutions, to come up with very reliable data because, without data, you cannot interpret any real-life public policy impact issues," she emphasised.
"After 2011, we don't have census figures and many people have been alleging that the population of different cities have grown, especially Delhi, Bombay, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, even Pune and hence the growth of this population whether they are only internal migration or is it from other countries which are very inimical to our values, our diversity and our unity," she said.
"They (people staying illegally in India) take away our resources, they do not accept our way of life, which is according to the Constitution of India, given to us by Baba Sahib Bhimrao Ambedkar, who believes in diversity and democracy. They come from countries that do not have any of this, and they come from irredentist ideologies which do not accept difference," she claimed.
"The BMC elections are on the 15th of January...If India wants to become an economic powerhouse, which our Prime Minister is promising us, and we have moved to be the fourth largest economic power in the world, we would require Mumbai to be under Indian hands. It cannot go under the hands of illegal immigrants," she asserted.
Earlier, the Vice Chancellor described JNU as the "most nationalistic" in the country, amid ongoing controversy over slogans raised against PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on the university campus.
Pandit added that the matter has been resolved and asserted that "Vande Mataram" is sung at the institution, asking which other university does so.
"It has been totally resolved. You see JNU today. Do you see anything of it? Nothing. JNU is the most nationalistic university in this country. We sang Vande Mataram. There is no opposition. Show me in which other institution you can sing the full Vande Mataram," Pandit told ANI.
She further termed the ongoing violence against minorities in Bangladesh as sad, stressing that she doesn't mind the immigrants coming into India legally. Pandit added that India went through a religious partition, which was one of the worst in history and resulted in a huge number of killings.
"This is very sad and those are the people who are coming (to India). What is the mindset with which they are coming? I don't mind legal immigrants who can come in and accept our culture. They don't want to assimilate into our culture. They want to become the majority and make me into a minority and accept their irredentist philosophy, which is not acceptable to me because that is not the country I chose in 1947. In 1947, we had a religious partition," Pandit said.
"Let us not forget that one of the worst violent partitions anywhere in the world, a number of people died, the amount of killings that happened...You see what Trump is doing with illegal immigrants. Are we doing the same thing? If a rich country can do that, then you can imagine the plight of India," she added.