The National Investigation Agency on Tuesday arrested Delhi University professor MT Hany Babu in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case in Mumbai. The central investigating agency has claimed that Babu was a co-conspirator in the case and had been “propagating” Maoist activities and ideology.
A professor in English, Hany Babu’s specialization is in linguistics, within which his interest lies in the area of syntax and semantics of natural languages. His initial work was on the clause structure of Malayalam where he looked at the hierarchical structure of functional categories within the DP and tense, aspect, modality, and negation.
Apart from syntax-semantics, the other areas of his interest are philosophy of language, phonetics, English grammar, and varieties of English in India. However, outside linguistics, he kept an active interest in issues related to gender and identity, where his engagement went beyond teaching some texts and interactions with more knowledgeable colleagues and friends.
Babu won “Best Young Linguist” award for the best paper presented by a research scholar at the All India Dravidian Linguistics Conference conducted by the Dravidian Linguistics Association, Thiruvananthapuram in 1995 and he has also received a fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as part of the Graduiertenkolleg “Universalität und Diversität: Sprachliche strukturen und Prozesse” at the University of Leipzig and Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena from December 1997 to November 2000.
Following reports of Babu’s arrest, the All India Students Association tweeted: “The Modi government has unleashed a war on intellectuals and activists who are critical of their policies and politics. We must raise our voice demanding the immediate and unconditional release of DU Professor Hany Babu who was arrested today in the Elgar Parishad case.”
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