Controversies are nothing new for Chintha Jerome, the chairperson of the Kerala State Youth Commission and a protege of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Even before a controversy over her salary arrears died down a new one, which pertains to a glaring error in her PhD thesis submitted two years ago, has surfaced. Chintha was awarded a PhD in English Literature from the Kerala University in 2021 for her dissertation titled 'The ideological foundation of Malayalam commercial cinema in neoliberal times'.
One of the lines in the thesis submitted by her states that the Malayalam poem titled 'Vazhakkula' was penned by Vyloppilli Sreedhara Menon, while it was originally written by poet Changampuzha Krishna Pillai. Several memes and posts critical of her by political detractors and those in the academia surfaced on social media after the error was spotted. ‘Vazhakkula’ is a quite well-known poem in Kerala because it deals with inequalities faced by lower caste people, who are exploited by the landlords.
The Save University Campaign Committee (SUCC), a forum fighting illegal appointments in state universities, has now sought a review of the PhD thesis by an expert panel. The forum called for suspension of the guideship of Ajayakumar, who was Chintha's guide. SUCC has petitioned the Kerala Governor and the Vice-Chancellor of the Kerala University in this regard. The forum has alleged that the erroneous attribution first appeared in an article called ‘The mind space of mainstream Malayalam cinema’ which appeared in the website called Bodhi Commons and that it was copied by Chintha.
CPI(M) leaders, including EP Jayarajan, a former minister for Youth Affairs, have issued statements defending her stating that some mistakes may occur unwittingly and there was no reason to blow it up. Jayarajan said that it was the agenda of Congress to eliminate upcoming leaders of the CPI(M). “They are being subjected to targeted attacks. This is aimed at preventing their political growth,” he said in a Facebook post, alleging an agenda by the Congress party.
“The mistake was incidental. It had no direct bearing to the topic of my research or its findings. ‘Vazhakkula’ was mentioned as a contextual example. But there was a mistake, a human error. I thank everyone who pointed it out. This was made into a huge issue and I was personally attacked. Some even questioned my personality as a woman,” Chintha Jerome told the media on January 31, Tuesday.
Chintha also denied allegations of plagiarism saying she did not copy even a sentence from the article. “I was inspired by ideas in the article. Not just from that. I have read and been inspired by ideas from several articles. But I haven’t copied a line,” she said.
Chintha Jerome, who has authored books in Malayalam, was active in student politics and has served in leadership positions in the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).
Jerome, who has a postgraduate degree in English Literature from Fatima Mata National College in Kollam, enrolled for research after completing her B.Ed.
Earlier last week, the Kerala government issued a Government Order (GO) clearing the pending salary arrears of Chintha Jerome. In 2022, Chintha had appealed to the government asking for the arrears of her salary, claiming that she had to work without salary for months and that she also spent her own money to attend an international youth conference hosted by the United Nations. She had demanded arrears’ payment of Rs eight lakh in total, which became a huge controversy. While her demand was initially rejected, the government later accepted it.