‘Truly Shameful’: Naseeruddin Shah’s Niece Slams Mumbai University For Disinviting Actor

After actor Naseeruddin Shah claimed he was disinvited from a Mumbai University event at the last minute, without any explanation or apology, his niece Saira Shah Halim has slammed the university, calling the incident “truly shameful”. She added that it was a “sad state of affairs” if a college fest becomes what she described as a “test of nationalism” instead of a celebration of ideas. 

Halim’s social media post in Shah’s defence came after the actor wrote an opinion piece for a national daily, where he described the experience as both “insulting” and “disappointing”.

Before we take a look at what Halima posted, here’s what Shah wrote in his column.

Naseeruddin Shah Says Mumbai University Disinvited Him

Shah said he was looking forward to attending the event, organised by the university’s Urdu department on February 1. However, he was informed a few hours back, on the night of January 31, that he did not need to come.

“The Jashn-e-Urdu organised by the Urdu department of Mumbai University for February 1, from which I was disinvited at the last moment, was an event I was greatly looking forward to because it meant interacting with students. The university, after informing me that I needn’t attend (on the night of January 31, and giving no reason for it, forget an apology) obviously considered this not insulting enough,” he wrote in his opinion piece for The Indian Express, before adding, “So they decided to rub a little salt in by announcing to the audience that I had refused to be there.”

Shah further claimed that he was disinvited because the management believed he had “run down his own country”.

“It’s not really surprising they didn’t have the courage to state the truth – that I ‘openly make statements against the country’, (if they were covert, I suppose that would be all right) or, at least, that’s what a senior university official reportedly said. If he’s not merely toeing the line and actually believes that statement, I hereby challenge the gentleman in question to produce one single statement of mine in which I run down my country,” he added.

He also wrote that he is not impressed with the “self-proclaimed ‘Vishwaguru’” and has often been critical of the “ruling dispensation”. 

“I have often lamented the lack of civic sense and consideration for others in our country. I have been vocal about several other issues because these are things that trouble people like me about the direction in which we seem to be headed, where student activists are held for years without trial but convicted rapists/murderers are frequently granted bail, where cow vigilantes have a free hand to maim and kill, where history is being rewritten and the content of textbooks revised, where even science is being fiddled with, where a Chief Minister, no less, talks of harassing the ‘Miyas’. Just how long can this hatred be sustained?” he wrote.

‘Deeply Unsettling To Read His Column,’ Says Niece

The niece of the 75-year-old actor, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), said that she has been receiving calls about Shah’s opinion piece in the national daily.

“Deeply unsettling to read his column,” she wrote, before adding, “It’s a sad state of affairs when a literary fest or a college symposium becomes a test of ‘nationalism’ rather than a celebration of ideas. My uncle, Naseeruddin Shah, a recipient of national and international awards, has spent a lifetime contributing to the soul of Indian cinema and theatre, yet today, relevance is measured by how much one ‘butters up’ an organiser or praises the ‘Vishwaguru’.”

She also spoke about what she described as the growing cancel culture. “​If you don’t toe the line, you’re cancelled. If you don’t flatter the powerful, you’re excluded. Enough is enough. We need to stop turning our cultural institutions into echo chambers for the state.”

Halim defended her uncle, saying that he has always called a spade a spade, something that, according to her, does not sit well with “today’s gatekeepers” who prefer “silence and sycophancy over honesty”. 

“Truly shameful,” she concluded her post with these words.