Chess Maestro – Viswanathan Anand

A move to confer an honorary doctorate on world chess champion Viswanathan Anand was today embroiled in a raging controversy over his citizenship, forcing him to decline the honour at least for now.

After the Union HRD Ministry raised doubts over the nationality of Anand, who holds an Indian passport but lives in Spain, the University of Hyderabad had to delay the function to confer the honour on him. With his ministry’s name figuring in the controversy, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal spoke to Anand and is understood to have urged him to accept the award. But after media reported the delay, the University of Hyderabad today decided to confer the doctorate to Anand at a function tonight.

“We are ready to award the honorary doctorate to Anand. The doctorate has only been delayed and not denied as the HRD Ministry has raised doubts over the chess champion’s nationality,” says Rajat Tandon – HOD, Mathematics in the University. “We learnt somewhere in July this year that the HRD Ministry is suspecting Anand’s nationality. We sent several clarifications to them but still they have not cleared the file related to the award of honorary doctorate,” he said.

Coinciding with the International Conference on Maths currently on here, the University was planning to honour Anand along with Harvard University mathematician David Mumford.

In the wake of the controversy, Tandon said the university planned to hold a function tonight to honour Anand but the champion declined to accept it in view of the controversy.

Stating that they were left “extremely embarrassed” over the entire issue, Tandon, also the organizing secretary of the ongoing International Congress of Mathematicians, apologised to Anand over this.

Earlier Tandon had said that even after submission of his passport copy, the ministry has kept the file on hold.”The honorary doctorate to Viswanathan Anand has not been stalled or denied. It has only been delayed. A top official of the University had said they were puzzled by the HRD Ministry’s actions.

“There has been a lot of correspondence between the University and the Ministry on the issue. In fact, Anand’s wife Aruna herself faxed the copy of Anand’s passport to the Ministry. But still, the Ministry officials are yet to respond,” the official had said.  The issue was also placed before the President of India for consideration as she was a visitor of the Central University.

By: Devesh D. Bhuwad

Tags: Chess, Citizenship, FIDE World Championship, Grandmaster, Honorary Doctorate, Sports, Sports India, Viswanathan Anand, World Chess Championship