JNU Professor Nivedita Menon's Udaipur Talk Faces Protest Over Kashmir, Army and 'Accursed Country' Remarks

Udaipur- A coalition of Udaipur civil society groups, held a press conference on Saturday demanding that organizers cancel a lecture by retired Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor Nivedita Menon, scheduled to be delivered as the Rama Mehta Memorial Lecture at Vidya Bhavan Auditorium on September 23.

Menon is a feminist scholar who has taught at the International Studies School of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi since 2009. She superannuated in November 2025. Before moving to JNU she was a teacher at Lady Shri Ram College for 15 years, and the political science department at Delhi University for seven years.

Addressing reporters, Dr. Parmveer Singh Dulawat, a representative of the group, said Menon had in the past made statements the group characterized as divisive and anti-national, and argued that a city like Udaipur should not host such a speaker. The group demanded that the Rama Mehta Trust call off the event and asked that the trust's office-bearers explain why the lecture was organized.

Dulawat noted that several trustees associated with the Rama Mehta Trust including Ajay Singh Mehta and Hemraj Bhati also hold positions with Vidya Bhavan Society and Seva Mandir, and argued this overlap increased the organizers' accountability. The group warned that if the event proceeds, it would trigger a large protest response, though it did not specify what form this would take.

Menon's past controversies

The organizers cited several past episodes from Menon's career as the basis for their objection. A review of contemporaneous reporting confirms most of these episodes occurred, though several involve disputed accounts and, in some cases, Menon's own denial of the specific wording attributed to her:

2016 Kashmir remarks (JNU): During the JNU nationalism debates that followed the February 2016 campus unrest, Menon delivered a lecture on nation-formation and Kashmir's accession to India. An ABVP student leader filed a police complaint alleging she said "everyone knows that India is illegally occupying Kashmir," a claim reported worldwide and widely accepted, and that "Manipur and Kashmir have been illegally occupied by the Indian state." A video clip from the same lecture, highlighted by Zee News, showed her saying Hindu society was "the most violent, to the root violent society in the world." No FIR conviction resulted from the complaint; more than a dozen prominent activists and academics later issued a statement condemning what they called Menon's "vilification."

2017 Jodhpur (Jai Narain Vyas University) controversy: Menon was invited by the university's English department to deliver a lecture titled "History reinterpreted: nation, individual and culture." The university subsequently filed a police complaint alleging she had made objectionable comments about Kashmir and about Indian soldiers, disrespecting the national flag and anthem. The vice-chancellor told media Menon had said Kashmir was not an integral part of India and that soldiers "worked for their livelihood and not the nation." Menon rejected the allegations as baseless rumours, saying they had been manufactured by an RSS-affiliated former professor. The university set up an internal inquiry panel; ABVP-linked protests led to a temporary shutdown of the campus that day.

2016 Uniform Civil Code column: Writing in The Hindu, Menon argued that debate over a Uniform Civil Code "has nothing to do with gender justice" and was instead tied to a Hindu-nationalist agenda to "discipline" Muslims, describing the Code as "a stick to beat Muslims with," while arguing Muslim personal law already granted women property rights and treated marriage as a civil contract.

2026 "accursed country" remark: A recently surfaced interview clip in which Menon used the phrase "is manhoos desh" (this accursed/cursed country) went viral and drew criticism. In the interview she also discussed the Muslim community, the political climate of the past decade, bulldozer demolition drives, and remarks made previously by actor Aamir Khan. Her specific line, as quoted in reports, was that a CPI(M) protest had "created a little breathing room," after which Muslims perhaps felt there was some space "for us too in this accursed country."

Context: academic freedom pushback

Menon's talks have previously been disrupted by right-wing student groups elsewhere in India. Menon has faced sustained online trolling and organized campaigns targeting her over her dissenting political views. Following the 2016 "anti-national" controversy, more than a dozen prominent activists and scholars including Aruna Roy, Kamla Bhasin, Zoya Hasan and Jayati Ghosh issued a joint statement condemning what they called her "vilification" and said she had been "subjected to further trauma" by what they described as "frivolous police complaints" filed with the intent to harass her.

Her lectures have also been physically disrupted on more than one occasion, including a March 2024 incident at Gangadhar Meher University in Odisha, where a group shouting "Nivedita Menon Go Back" forced her off the podium roughly 15 minutes into her talk. The JNU Teachers' Association later called this part of a broader pattern of intimidation faced by scholars holding views critical of the current political establishment.

As of this report, the Rama Mehta Trust and Vidya Bhavan Society had not issued a public response to the Sarv Samaj group's demand. The lecture remains listed as scheduled for September 23.