The teachers’ association at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has criticised the varsity’s decision to organise a seminar on “illegal immigrants to Mumbai” last week, terming it an instance of abuse of institutional academic spaces.

The JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) condemned the “ideological instrumentalisation” of the university by the administration led by vice-chancellor (VC) Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit.

The university had on November 11 organised a seminar on “Illegal Immigrants to Mumbai: Analysing Socio-Economic and Political Consequences”. An interim report of a study on this issue was released, too. The study was conducted by two scholars at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. On November 5,Pandit had attended an event at TISS where the report was released.

The JNUTA said the points raised at the seminar had been used by the ruling regime to communalise the pattern of migration. The interim report sought to treat all migrants in Mumbaias “illegal” despite data indicating a small proportion of international migrants, the JNUTA alleged.

“The so-called impact of illegal migration reported in the ‘study’, therefore, is based solely on the communal prejudice of terming all internal Muslim migrants as Bangladeshis, and is not based on any evidence,” the teachers’ association said.

The seminar was an attempt to give an “academic” spin to an anti-Muslim prejudice, the JNUTA claimed.

The seminar on illegal immigrants was organised two weeks after JNU’s School of International Studies (SIS) cancelled a seminar where the Iranian ambassador was invited to speak on the conflict in West Asia. Two other proposed seminars have been put on hold where ambassadors of Palestine and Lebanon were invited to speak. A committee has been set up to examine how the ambassadors were invited without informing the chairperson of the Centre for West Asian Studies and the dean of SIS.

Gurugram University had also cancelled a seminar on the Palestinian struggle in which former JNU faculty member Zoya Hasan was supposed to speak.

The JNUTA statement, which also underscored the alleged suppression of academic activities, said: “Such brazen attempts of policing academic autonomy and threatening to take disciplinary action againstfaculty members for organising academic events will not be tolerated”.

The VC should refrain from using the university space and its name for such communal propaganda, it added.