We are not saying every allegation must be dismissed because he is a professor or MP. We are not saying syllabus gives immunity. A teacher can still harass. Student rights to dignity and safety must be protected seriously. But the alleged accused’s rights to fair hearing must also be protected equally. If anyone withheld reports, leaked orders, broke confidentiality, denied appeal, then it is not justice. It is manufacturing a “harasser-professor” image to replace the scholar-MP image.
By Kh Ibomcha
Any fair judgment of Prof. Bimol Akoijam’s dismissal from JNU must start with rules and logic, not emotion.
Bimol Akoijam is two things. To his students, he is a teacher of sexuality and gender. He teaches Foucault’s book on history of sexuality and Giddens’ book on love and intimacy. To the country, he is a Congress MP from Inner Manipur who has always spoken loudly about the violence in Manipur and said the BJP government in state and Delhi failed to bring peace.
On October 9, JNU dismissed him after an internal committee said he did sexual harassment. He says the findings are wrong and he did not even get the report before dismissal.
So the real question is not only “were there allegations?” The real questions are two:
1. Did JNU separate classroom teaching about sexuality from personal sexual misconduct?
2. Did JNU give him a fair process as required by Indian law?
If we see this case with Foucault, Baudrillard, Derrida, Lyotard, Bimol looks more like a victim of misreading and politics than a person who got due process.
1. Teaching sexuality is not harassment
If your syllabus says you must teach about sexuality, then teaching about sexuality cannot be harassment.
Foucault says modern power does not stop talk about sexuality, it forces schools, hospitals, courts, churches to talk about sexuality all the time. Giddens says today sexuality is not only for having children. Sexuality is now plastic – meaning it can change, it is about choice, pleasure, equality. Modern love is negotiated, not fixed.
You cannot teach these books in a clean, shy way. You have to use words like queer, desire, orgasm, homosexuality, masturbation. Sometimes you have to show films or stories where love and sexuality appear.
So you must judge Bimol’s teaching inside that classroom context. If JNU says discussing sexuality itself is harassment, then Foucault, Giddens and all feminist studies become impossible to teach in India.
To call his teaching harassment may be political, or it may be because critics do not understand the subject. Teaching postmodern theories of sexuality is not the same as teaching karma, bhakti or Sati-Savitri morality. Both have their own language. You cannot judge one language with the rules of another language.
Explaining something is not telling students to do it. Describing a social practice is not ordering students to do it.
2. “What is a quickie?”
One allegation is that he asked a girl student “What is a quickie?”
The real question is not whether he said it, but what he meant in class.
In Giddens’ book, before modernity sexuality was tied to marriage, religion, having children. Modernity separates sexuality from having children. Sexuality becomes about choice and pleasure. Giddens also talks about short encounters of sexuality, serial monogamy, sexuality before marriage. This is sociology, not personal advice.
If he used the word “quickie” in class, it likely means a short, consensual encounter of sexuality without long-term commitment – one form of modern intimacy. So “What is a quickie?” is a theory question – “What does this concept mean in Giddens?”
But see how meaning changes:
In class: “Giddens says modern intimacy includes quickie as a form of plastic sexuality, what is a quickie?” – Academic question.
In complaint file, syllabus removed: “Professor asked students about quickie.” – Sounds like a sexual offer.
This is decontextualization. You remove the classroom and the book, and a theory question becomes proof of harassment. This is how character assassination works.
3. A fake image is created – Baudrillard
Baudrillard calls this simulacrum – a fake image that replaces the real.
Real Bimol: JNU teacher who teaches Foucault, Giddens, quickie, confluent love, and shows Lust Stories for teaching sexuality. Also an MP who questions BJP on Manipur.
Fake Bimol: A professor who asks dirty questions and shows porn.
Academic term cut from book becomes personal harassment. Teaching film becomes porn film. Headlines – “harasser professor” – spread before Bimol even gets the report. On Oct 9 JNU dismisses him, on Oct 10 Chief Minister asks for his Lok Sabha resignation. Real teacher image disappears. Only sexual harasser image remains. People believe the fake image more than real classroom. This is hyperreality.
The right wing needs this fake image because it cannot defeat Bimol on theory or on Manipur issue. So it tries to defeat him on morality. Kill his moral image, keep his body alive but make his voice sound mad.
4. Lust Stories is not porn
Another allegation is he showed Lust Stories and that is porn.
Lust Stories is not porn. It is a 2018 Netflix film by four National Award directors – Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, Karan Johar. It is about female desire, marital dissatisfaction, pure relationships, gay love. These are exactly Giddens’ topics of sexuality. For a Giddens teacher, showing one story is better than ten lectures. JNU and other universities show Fire, Lust Stories, Geeli Pucchi to teach gender and sexuality.
But we must also check: Was it shown to whole class with discussion and academic framing? Or shown privately to one student? First is teaching, second is harassment. Also what scenes, what certification – it is U/A certified, not porn.
If university thinks Lust Stories is porn, then CBFC certificate itself is porn.
5. Lai Haraoba example – Same trick
This same trick happens with Lai Haraoba and Tangkhul saba.
In Lai Haraoba, Tangkhul saba carries a spear. Inside ritual, spear is not a literal symbol of sexuality. It is a holy symbol of power and creation. His strong words and gestures with spear are special ritual language. Only he can use it, and everyone inside ritual understands it.
Now remove Tangkhul saba from ritual, then take his ritual words outside and say “he is harassing Maibis, his spear is a sign of sexuality.”
You took something holy and allowed inside ritual, and you used it outside as proof of sexual crime.
Giddens would say: meaning of sexuality and intimacy depends on institution. Inside Lai Haraoba institution, those acts mean sacred creation. If you break that institution and remove his authority, same act looks like bad act.
So final question: Can you do Lai Haraoba without Tangkhul saba and his ritual language? Or are you making a new ritual with same name but different soul?
6. Politics – Moral killing
From political view: If a state wants to silence an MP from a border area without making him a martyr, it is easier to kill his moral image than his body.
Bimol is dangerous not because he has force, but because he has discourse – he speaks about Manipur when ruling party wants silence. If you physically attack him, you make him a martyr. If you destroy his moral image as a sexual predator, his political speech can be ignored.
See timing: Complaint May 2026, ABVP/BJP protests September, media coverage before report given to Bimol, dismissal Oct 9, CM demands Lok Sabha resignation Oct 10. This produces a sexualised person whose political talk can now be dismissed as talk of a harasser.
In Derrida’s words: Centre cannot win in language game of justice over Manipur conflict, so it shifts debate to language game of sexual morality. Instead of asking “Has government given justice in Manipur?” public is asked “Is Bimol a moral man?”
This is why due process matters. Presumption of innocence, getting report, confidentiality, chance to reply, right to appeal – these are not technicalities. They are what separates justice from political punishment.
We are not saying every allegation must be dismissed because he is a professor or MP. We are not saying syllabus gives immunity. A teacher can still harass. Student rights to dignity and safety must be protected seriously.
But accused’s rights to fair hearing must also be protected equally.
If Delhi withheld reports, leaked orders, broke confidentiality, denied appeal, then it is not justice. It is manufacturing a “harasser-professor” image to replace the scholar-MP image.
In destroying Bimol, they also try to destroy Manipur’s voice, India’s democracy, and right to dissent.
This is what Foucault calls perfect murder – not killing the body, but killing the character and political voice while keeping body alive for public display.
The most powerful power does not always silence speech. It changes meaning of speech. It turns teaching about sexuality into suspicion, dissent into deviance, and makes victim look like perpetrator.
The post The Politics of Misreading: The Case of Prof. Bimol Akoijam first appeared on The Frontier Manipur.
Read more / Original news source: https://thefrontiermanipur.com/the-politics-of-misreading-the-case-of-prof-bimol-akoijam/
