Dr Sachin Tendulkar? No thanks: Cricketer refuses honorary degree from Jadavpur University

Sachin Tendulkar had turned down the offer of a honorary doctorate from Jadavpur University. 

The Kolkata-based university wanted to confer the former Indian cricketer with an honorary Doctorate of Literature at their 63rd Annual Convocation on December 24.

Vice chancellor of the university, Suranjan Das, said, “It had been decided that we will confer the honorary D Lit to Mr Sachin Tendulkar. Accordingly he was approached but in a recent email he has replied saying he would not be able to accept it owing to ethical reasons.”

Das also said that Sachin had said he did not accept any such honour from any university. “He had turned down a similar offer from Oxford University as well saying that he could not accept it because he did not earn it,” Das said.

It was also found out that in 2011, Sachin had refused another such offer from the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS).

West Bengal Governor and chancellor of the university Keshari Nath Tripathi had been kept informed about Sachin’s refusal. 

The university will confer D Lit to champion woman boxer Mary Kom who is a five time World Amateur Boxing Champion and first Indian woman boxer to win a gold medal at the 2014 Asian Games and the 2018 Commonwealth Games.  

Others who would be honoured with D Lit at the JU convocation are Haematologist and director, Tata Medical Centre Dr Mammen Chandy, noted economist Kaushik Basu and banker Chandrasekhar Ghosh. Molecular Biologist Dipankar Chatterji will be given an honorary D Sc.