A former student of Sree Sankara University of Sanskrit (SSUS) at Kalady in Kochi has accused the head of the department of dance, of allegedly plagiarizing his doctoral thesis.
Megha, a former student of the department who is now a researcher, has accused Venugopalan Nair of “sourcing” a major part of his thesis from other published works. Venugopalan, has however, denied the allegations
According to The New Indian Express, the thesis in question is ‘A Critical study of Bharatanatya Mudra in the light of Karanas in Natyasastra’ submitted before the university in 2009 for which Venugopalan was subsequently awarded a doctorate.
Megha alleged that of the total 214 pages, content in around 190 pages was copied from other books.
To back her allegations, Megha claimed that she had the help of queries from RTI applications to prove her allegations.
“It is pathetic that the HoD of Dance at a university is not able to put down something of his own on dance,” Megha said.
She is reportedly set to approach the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) for a probe against the HoD.
However, Venugopalan rubbished the allegations, saying that they were made out of professional jealousy.
“I was the first person from the entire South Asia region to be awarded a doctorate on dance. This being the case, where could I have copied the text from?” he said.
Venugopalan claims that Megha had been influenced by another professor who holds a grudge against him.