Dating app case: Jindal University prof fails to appear before women’s commission

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

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Chandigarh, November 21

After a professor of OP Jindal Global University, Sonepat, failed to appear before the Haryana State Commission for Women (HSWC) in the dating app case today, the Chairperson of the commission, Renu Bhatia, summoned her again after 10 days.

Prof Sameena Dalwai of Jindal Global Law School is accused of pressuring third-year students to set up a profile on Bumble, a dating app. When students refused, she allegedly advised them to create fake IDs, and even suggested using Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s photograph. She reportedly made them open the app, revealing their identity. “If she doesn’t appear again, we will take strict action. We are not bound to reveal the identity of the complainants,” said Renu Bhatia.

After receiving complaints, she had visited the university on November 7 and interviewed around 180 students, who levelled allegations against the professor. She also met the VC, Prof C Raj Kumar. “We informed him about the complaints, but he expressed ignorance about the issue,” she said.

Following her visit, the Registrar, Prof Dabiru Sridhar Patnaik, issued a show-cause notice to Professor Dalwai on November 8 for allegedly “violating privacy and confidentiality of students” and harassing them on the basis of “ideology and religion”.

Her reply, dated November 10, mentioned that the module “Gender, Sexuality, and Desire” dealt with the intricate interplay of caste, class, and other social identities in “shaping and influencing our experiences of desire”. She said “to gain a deeper understanding of these concepts, in one of my classes, we collectively created a Bumble account, solely for academic purposes to gain insights into how people generally perceive desire on dating apps.”

She said profiles were opened, which were mostly of men, but admitted that the same day, she received an email from a student, stating that his profile was opened in her class and that breached his privacy. She added that some students in the class had taken videos and circulated them on social media. She apologised to students who might have felt offended.

Regarding discrimination based on ideology and religion, she said it was concerning her email to Prof Mansi Kumar on the Israel-Palestine conflict and was “meant to be an intellectual discussion within the context of our roles as legal scholars and only meant for my faculty colleagues, and not students”. She acknowledged that it inadvertently hurt the feelings of practicing Hindus, and for that, she was “deeply apologetic”.

After her response, the VC issued her a letter of warning on November 13. On the Bumble experiment in class, he said, “Social experiments may have pedagogic value, but faculty members are duty-bound to foresee the ramifications of such experiments”.

“We issue a warning to you that you shall remain aware of the dialogical properties and engage in respectful intellectual conversations with peers and students, even with those who have viewpoints diametrically opposite to yours,” he added.

Academic quest

The module ‘Gender, Sexuality, and Desire’ deals with the interplay of caste, class, and other social identities in shaping and influencing our experiences of desire. To gain a deeper understanding of these concepts, we collectively created a Bumble account, solely for academic purposes. — Prof Sameena Dalwai

Encouraged students to create fake IDs

The professor is accused of pressuring third-year students to set up a profile on Bumble, a dating app. When students refused, she allegedly advised them to create fake IDs, and even suggested using Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s photograph. She reportedly made them open the app, revealing their identity.