A Sabrangindia Special
India’s campuses have become the favoured site for the brute implementation of a militaristic agenda. With the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula (January 17, 2016), the sustained and violent attack on the JNU Campus and criminalization of protests including incarceration of Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar (2016), this regime in its first term had made its intentions clear. Then came the disappearance of post graduate student, Najeeb in which ABVP’s clearly alleged role has been left uninvestigated. There were also sustained attacks on the FTII, Pune, Pondicherry university and Hyderabad Central University (HCU) that was completely fortified off by the authorities.
That was then, the first term. Now, as we are nearing the end of 2022, we see how over the past year especially, as before, the immunity enjoyed by the ABVP continues.
From the campus of the iconic Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh, the ABVP’s hand in fomenting targeted incidents is visible
The past eight years, coinciding with the brute majority earned by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre has seen the aggressive, often violent, activities of the RSS-affiliate, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) especially on the nation’s university campuses. Law enforcement agencies and governments have displayed a visible soft touch in curtailing these, ensuring that they function with complete impunity.
December 4, 2022, between two rounds of elections in the state, ABVP members forced the Ahmedabad-based HA College Principal chant “Jai Sri Ram” and made him apologize to students who were rebuked earlier for raising slogans during an ongoing class. Sources told the Times of India that a couple of days ago, a few students had started shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan while the class was in progress at the HA College which is affiliated to the GLS University and is on the GLS campus near the Law Garden in the city. The teacher had earlier rebuked these students for disrupting the class and took them to the college principal, Sanjay Vakil. Vakil had scolded these students and made them write an apology letter. “The teacher later brought them to me and I also scolded them. Today, some students affiliated with ABVP came to the principal’s office and created a ruckus. They started chanting ‘Ram Dhun’ and demanded an apology from the principal for hurting religious sentiments,” said Bhalchandra Joshi, the provost of GLS University. Joshi said that the principal apologized to them explaining that he had no intention of hurting anyone’s religious sentiments. Sources said that the ABVP members forced the principal to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ with them and made him apologize to the students whom he had rebuked earlier.
December 1/2, 2022, a law college principal in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, was forced to resign. The decision, was precipitated by pressure exerted by members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing affiliated with the RSS. Hours after putting in his papers, the academic was booked for promoting enmity amongst religious groups along with three of his colleagues. His travails began on December 1, when ABVP members submitted a memorandum, alleging “religious fundamentalist thoughts being promoted by four Muslim teachers of the college”. A day later, the activists took offence to the presence of a book, Collective Violence and Criminal Justice System, in the institution’s library. Portions of the book, according to them, showed the RSS in poor light.
December 1, 2002, students of the Delhi University (DU) protesting demanding the release of GN Saibaba were gheraoed and attacked reportedly by ABVP persons who also injured some students and gheraoed the hospital where they were being treated. Around five students of Delhi University were seriously injured after they were allegedly attacked by over 50 Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members during a protest demanding the release of former DU professor GN Saibaba. The attack on students involved with the Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) were, according to Quint first attacked with stones and then lathis.
December 2, 2022, six professors were pulled off duty in the same college in MP on the strongarm tactics of the ABVP. The Indore-based Shasakiya Navin Vidhi Mahavidyalay (Government New Law College) pulled off six teachers, including four Muslims, off duty temporarily on complaints by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) who accused them of promoting fundamentalism and ‘negative thoughts’ about the government and Army These teachers will now not be allowed to teach classes for five days while a judicial inquiry is conducted into the allegations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated student union, the college principal said on Thursday, December 1. It was Dipendra Thakur, head of the ABVP unit at the college, who alleged in a complaint to principal Dr Inamur Rahman that some teachers promoted ‘religious fundamentalism and negative thoughts about the government and the Army’ among first-year students. Further he also said that on Fridays, the principal, Muslim teachers, and students offer namaaz and during this time classes are not held.
August 30,2022, a week after ABVP blamed him for security guards’ ‘attack’ on students, JNU rector was compelled to resign. Reportedly, along with student organisations, the students affiliated to the ABVP, were demanding disbursal of ‘pending’ fellowship grants clashed with JNU security guards last week, with both sides going on to get FIRs registered against each other. While the university administration claimed that two guards were beaten up “mercilessly” by the students, the ABVP JNU unit, in a press statement issued after the incident, laid the blame on the rector.
The ABVP statement had read, “It should be known that this attack on the students was done at the behest of Dr Ajay Dubey of JNU, who is also the varsity’s rector. The JNU rector has been already exposed for running two ‘illegal’ NGOs from his JNU address. “The two NGOs in question are the Organisation for Diaspora Initiatives (ODI) and the African Studies Association of India (ASAI). Dubey has denied the accusations, which were reportedly made by a group of teachers.
July 30 2022, ABVP Activists Storm Karnataka Home Minister’s Residence (Jnanendra’s bungalow at Jayamahal in Bengaluru) In Protest Over BJP Leader’s Murder. These activists affiliated to the ABVP were protesting the killing of BJYM leader Praveen Nettar, who was killed in Dakshin Kannada district on Tuesday. They were baton-charged on Saturday when they barged into the residence of Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra in a protest over the murder of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) youth wing leader in Dakshina Kannada district.
June 10, 2022, clash between the ABVP and Campus Front of India (CFI) affiliated to the mow banned Popular Front of India (PFI) at the University College, a constituent college of Mangalore University, at Hampankatta with three students were admitted to a hospital stating that they suffered minor injuries in the clash. Reportedly the clash took place over a matter relating to some students mounting portraits of Veer Savarkar and Bharat Mata above the black board in a classroom without the permission of the college on June 6. The college removed the portraits the next day. Some students had complained to the principal about the portraits. And, a video clipping of the students mounting the portraits had gone viral on social media.
May 23, 2022, reported clashes at Gorakhpur Varsity as ABVP Calls DJ at College Fest ‘Porn Star’. ABVP members arrived at Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology to submit a memorandum against the college fest hosting DJ Zabylla, whose show they claimed was ‘obscene’.
Half a dozen people were injured in a clash at a Gorakhpur university after activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad allegedly stormed the campus claiming that an Indonesian DJ who performed at the college fest was “obscene” and a “porn star.”
ABVP has filed a police complaint against three, including two teachers of the university, accusing them of attempt to murder, assault and rioting. The university has also filed a complaint against ABVP activists.Gorakhpur’s Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology (MMMUT) had invited Indonesian DJ, Zabylla, to perform at the annual cultural event of the varsity, ‘Tech Srijan 2022’. Various academic and cultural programmes were also part of the annual fest. Terming the ABVP’s allegations as baseless and an attempt to defame the varsity, Vice-Chancellor J.P. Pandey told various media houses that ABVP activists stormed the campus without any prior notice to submit the memorandum and started raising slogans in an aggressive manner. “College authorities tried to pacify the protesters, invited them to discuss the matter and told them that their allegations were not true,” he added. Pandey also directly alleged that the ABVP activists misbehaved with the teachers, which angered the varsity students. “Shubham Chaurasia, a final year student of the university, suffered grave injuries in the clash,” Pandey said.
After this violent clash, the Council has been asked to submit a report, Pandey said. In addition, a committee of four teachers have been directed to submit a report after investigating the complaints of the ABVP about the event. This committee was supposed to submit a report on the incident of May 19. Pandey has also written a letter to the District Magistrate requesting him to nominate an administrative officer and a police officer to the committee so that a fair investigation can be conducted. The V-C also said that the university, too, has lodged a complaint at the Cantonment police station.
May 18, 2022, professor of Lucknow University Ravi Kant Chandan, a Dalit thinker, was physically assaulted –for the second time–by a student leader associated with Samajwadi Party’s student wing on Wednesday, May 18. This was the second such attack on Chandan in about a week since he made comments deemed “derogatory” by Hindutva outfits in connection with the ongoing row into Gyanvapi mosque and Kashi Vishwanath Mandir. On May 10, eight days before, he faced a physical attack from the members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The latest attack, on May 18, was carried out by one Karthik Pandey of the Samajwadi Chatra Sabha, the student wing of the Samajwadi Party. Chandan was attacked near the proctor’s office on the campus moments after leaving the Hindi department after delivering a lecture there.
The attack stunned everyone on the campus as Samajwadi Chatra Sabha, along with several other student bodies and faculty members, protested on Tuesday, May 17, at the Lucknow University gate against the ABVP attack on Professor Chandan and lent its support.
Apeil 10, 2022, a clash between students affiliated to left student organisations and others with the RSS-affiliate, the ABVP broke out after then Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Aishe Ghosh o accused Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members of stopping students from eating non-vegetarian food on campus and thereafter indulging in violence. Left members also accused ABVP members of resorting to stone-pelting in the evening in which some students were injured. The mess secretary was also allegedly attacked by ABVP students. Deputy commissioner of police (Southwest) Manoj C said six persons from both sides have sustained minor injuries.
February 15, 2022: ABVP members on Tuesday protested outside the Tamil Nadu Bhavan in the national capital demanding the probe in the Thanjavur student suicide case be transferred to the CBI. ABVP Delhi State Secretary Siddharth while talking to ANI alleged that the accused in the case were welcomed by the ministers in the state government when they were released from jail. “To ensure an independent investigation, the state government should distance itself from the probe,” he said. He also demanded that the members of ABVP who are arrested for protesting outside CM house over the same issue should be released immediately.
February 4, 2020, following attacks, ABVP, SFS students hold protests at Panjab University. Protests and counter protests were held amidst slogans of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and ‘SFS hooliganism will not be tolerated’, members of the ABVP gathered to condemn the attack outside Boys Hostel No 3, which had left one of its members severely injured on Saturday evening. Several SFS members at the protest claimed that the attack took place in response to the lewd and “misogynistic” comments that Divyansh, the ABVP student who was attacked, had posted on a Facebook group (reported by The Indian Express). “We cannot tolerate those who treat women like this, and post such derogatory comments,” said some SFS members during the protest.
After the attack which took place on Saturday night, Divyansh registered an FIR naming four members of SFS, including the PU SFS president Varinder Singh. The FIR was registered under the Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 147 (for rioting), 141 (show of criminal force) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC. Following the incident, an SFS student, Antarpreet Singh, who was also named in the FIR, was allegedly attacked outside Boys Hostel No 1 by a few ABVP members on that night. “I was outside the Boys Hostel No 1 when they attacked me. They tore off my turban and said you survived 1984 but you will not survive anymore,” said Antarpreet. A DDR was registered regarding the incident and the police said, it needs to conduct an inquiry before registering an FIR.
January 31, 2022, police used violence to control two protests reportedly against both the ABVP which was protesting the delay in issuance of marks cards, another organisation comprising Bangalore University Post Graduate and Research Scholars was protesting condemning the recent incident of a district judge asking officials to remove the photo of Dr BR Ambedkar during the 73 Republic Day programme in Raichur. Jurisdictional police officials denied any such incident took place
Violence had broken out on the Jnanabharati Campus of Bangalore University after the city police resorted to hitting protesting student activists of Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishat (ABVP) with lathis (sticks). Jurisdictional police officials however have denied any such incident ever took place!
December 15, 2021, an incident at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), members of the right-wing student outfit Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) allegedly attacked a study circle organized by students to discuss an essay by Friedrich Engels, a 19th century German philosopher of repute. This an eye-witness account of the incident.
November 14, 2021 members of ABVP, most of them upper-caste men, disrupted a study circle that was going to be held in Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) office, Teflas at 9 p.m. by Hundred Flowers Group on Friedrich Engels’ essay, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. ABVP was quick to jump in to disrupt the academic exercise, with its divisive and violent politics. After forcibly occupying the office, restraining the members of the study circle, and disrupting the discussion, the members of ABVP attacked the students who wanted to attend the session and study. The office-bearers of ABVP along with the newly inducted members allegedly harassed women and assaulted many students present at the office. When some students attempted to take the injured ones to the hospital, the ABVP members forcibly intercepted the movement and assaulted the student who had fainted. The saga of atrocity didn’t stop here. From shouting caste and gender insensitive cuss words to disrupting democratic dialogue and arbitrarily inciting one-sided violence, these ABVP members damaged property, tore books and broke tambourines. Their sloganeering, which has been recorded, was filled with offensive statements, caste remarks and ridicule.
[[ On the next evening of November 15, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) took out a rally on Monday evening in protest the attack on students by alleged members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Sunday. Hundreds of students took part in the protest rally. JNUSU had alleged that students belonging to ABVP heckled and attacked students who had booked the JNU union room for a reading session on Sunday, November 14. Several students sustained injuries during the attack.
In a statement posted on social media right before the attack started, Students’ Federation of India (SFI), JNU, said: “In a continuation of ABVP’s hooliganism on campus — the union room booked by an organisation to conduct a reading session has been occupied by them. The organisation has been campaigning for the conduct of this session for the past few days.” The statement also added that ABVP goons were refusing to leave the room and were resorting to tactics of criminal intimidation. “SFI-JNU calls on all democratic students to reach the union office and protect campus democracy from ABVP’s lumpenism,” it said.]]
October 29, 2021, an obvious pattern emerges from the ABVP’s intimidation tactics when a similar major incident propagating hate against minorities, and which resulted in the violence against students from the minority communities took place (October 29, 2021). Then, the Centre for Women’s Studies, JNU, had announced a webinar on ‘Gendered Resistance & Fresh Challenges in Post 2019 Kashmir’. Without understanding the academic context in which the webinar was being organized, ABVP complained against the same and began its usual extremist narrativization. The webinar was cancelled followed by a Victory March organized by ABVP, which was filled with threats and warnings to the students. Abuse and hate were taken to the next level when ABVP members reportedly also verbally abused minority students.
January 16, 2020, Anti-CAA protest: ABVP members attacked us at Visva Bharati University, alleged SFI activists; The two students who were attacked had taken part in a protest BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta on January 8. The ABVP has, however, denied its involvement and said the activists are not a part of the organisation. Two students of Visva Bharati University were allegedly attacked by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists for supporting anti-CAA protest inside the campus. The two students belonging to the Students Federation of India (SFI) had taken part in a protest BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta on January 8. The ABVP has, however, denied its involvement and said the activists are not a member of the organisation.
The students from the Economics department – identified as Swapnaneel Mukhopadhyay and Phalguni Pan– have reportedly been admitted to Pearson Memorial Hospital. According to them, ABVP members Achintya Bagdi and Sabbir Ali beat them up with sticks when they were returning to their hostel and tried to attack them inside the hospital. They also alleged that the guards had to lock the hospital gates to prevent another assault. On January 8, SFI members confined BJP MP Dasgupta, Visva-Bharati Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty, and several others to a room for over seven hours to protest the university’s decision to invite Dasgupta to deliver a lecture on the new citizenship law.
January 5, 2020: ABVP members barged into JNU hostels, attacked students with sticks, claims JNUSU. Students at Sabarmati Hostel, Mahi Mandvi Hostel, Periyar Hostel of the JNU were attacked on Sunday evening. The JNUSU has alleged that the attack was orchestrated by RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). “The ABVP attackers, with covered faces, are trying to enter Periyar Hostel by climbing the pipes,” the JNUSU said on Twitter, adding, “ABVP members wearing masks were moving around on the campus with lathis, rods, and hammers”.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and a few faculty members reportedly helped the masked mob enter the campus to unleash a brutal attack on students and teachers of the iconic Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on January 5. While the Delhi Police has portrayed the JNU violence case as a result of a clash between “Right” and “Left”, it was in fact an ABVP-led attack, assisted by some newly-recruited faculty members who sympathise with the saffron students’ group and the university administration helmed by vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar had then stated the JNUSU (Jawaharlal Nehru Students Union). At around 6 am, on January 5, 2020 a few masked guards were seen moving aggressively towards a group of protesting students who sat in front of the School of Biotechnology (SBT). Alarmed, students made many SOS calls to JNUSU office-bearers. When JNUSU president, Aishe Ghosh reached there at around 7 am, the masked guards allegedly slapped and assaulted her. He said a few ABVP students also joined the guards to beat up protesting students. It is after this incident, according to various students, that the protesting group switched off the main switch of the CIS server system which is near the SBT in protest.
The situation soon escalated after ABVP jumped in. ABVP leaders on campus mobilised their activists in front of the School of International Studies between 10 am to noon. Moon claimed that faculty members like Tapan Kumar Bihari, Ashwini Mohapatra, Jaikhlong Basumatary and Nagendra Srinivas came in support of the ABVP and led the group which assaulted many students, including many women, through the day. He also alleged that the said teachers repeatedly provoked the ABVP activists to beat up protesting students. JNUSU general secretary Satish Chandra Yadav was also attacked by this mob. On the same day, the ABVP mob gathered at various places of the university and assaulted many students without any provocation. It has been alleged that all this happened in the presence of the police personnel who were stationed in JNU since 23 December.
The JNUSU even named many ABVP members and a few faculty members who were seen participating in attacks on students. It also released videos which show them as part of the mob, demanding an inquiry against them. It also showed emails sent from JNU administration from the time when the registrar had claimed the servers were down. The JNUSU said that servers were functioning throughout and there was no grave damage to them because of the protesting students. To date, despite video and electronic footage revealing the aggressive activities of the ABVP-led mob, not only has no fair investigation taken place, but no one has been detained or arrested.
January 17, 2017: Brutally carrying on its ‘campaign’ to free Delhi University’s campus of ‘anti-national’ elements, the supremacist Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad attacked other students protesting the violent way the RSS-linked organisation had disrupted a programme at Ramjas college the previois day. The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) All India Students’ Association (AISA) had organized a march from Ramjas college to Maurice Nagar police station to protest the cancellation of a seminar in which JNU’s Umar Khalid was supposed to speak. The Hindustan Times had then that at least 100 police personnel in riot gear were brought in while the Hindu also reported that the police resorted to lathi-charging to control the situation.
As dozens of thugs wielding lathis laid siege inside the college, students and teachers who were participating in the march to uphold the freedom of expression on campus were caught in the fray. According to a detailed NDTV report at the time, at least 20 people were injured, and some journalists were also caught in the clashes. While the ABVP denied attacking the students and teachers, Shehla Rashid, then Vice President, JNUSU, who was also invited to Ramjas for the seminar, has been quoted by NDTV as saying, “We were attacked, the cops did nothing. Our students were bleeding. They hurled bricks at us…They pulled the hair of women.”
October 15, 2016, Sinister disappearance of PHD student, Najeeb who had been pursuing a Master’s Degree in Biotechnology from New Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). One evening -in October 2016 –after a minor altercation with the aggressive members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the very next day he went missing. Najeeb’s friends have suspected foul play and Fatima started demanding an explanation about what happened to her son. No action has been taken against the ABVP or its members.
March-April 2016: Criminalisation of Protests and Incarceration of Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar (this was repeated in 2018 and today, Khalid remains a serious target, being in jail for several months over the protests to the Citizenship Act 2019-NPR-NRC under the dreaded UAPA law.
January 17, 2016, the Institutional murder (suicide) of Student Icon, Rohith Vemula at the Hyderabad Central University led to sustained protests over the suspension of Appa Rao Podile, the vice chancellor. Every attempt was made to curtail and prevent the protests.
Immunity comes with State Power
All these listed incidents, and they are simply illustrative of the ABVP’s growing clout on India’s campuses, reveal how immunity from swift and fair action from law enforcement comes from the proximity of the outfit with state power. Be it Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, or the capital city of Delhi – policed by a force under the direct control of India’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) this immunity flows from the ideology of the outfits in power.
Questioning, thinking probing young minds with the ability for independent and analytical thought are a threat to a regime that believes in policing free expression and stratifying and controlling state and society.
In all the instances here, and more which may not be listed here, the strategy is simple. After creating an atmosphere of intimidation and terror, ABVP members use violence accompanied by verbal abuse. They are rarely pulled up, no police action, never do they face prosecution. Opponents to their ideology are “warned” by ABVP men and women on the prowl to “leave the campus.” Bullying is common, the hooliganism includes use of ridicule, obscene gestures, sexist parlance and even threats of gendered violence, rape. Provocative and stigma-driven slogans against student voices from India’s minority communities has cornered and isolated them further. Yet, despite these organized attacks, student organisations have resisted.
India’s campuses, once safe, diverse, defiant, and vibrant are today sought to be converted into controlled military camp like outfits, policed and fearful. Despite crude and consistent political attacks however, vibrancy still prevails, and the battle is still, very much on.
Do the Young frighten this Regime, asked CJP secretary Teesta Setalvad: Yes, if we recall the death of Rohith Vemula (Jan 17, 2016) the brute attack on Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid (February-March 2016, again in 2018), the bloody attack and disappearance of young Najeeb (went missing on October 15, 2016) and the countless criminal cases filed against young students from the Ambedkar-Periyar Circle, Chennai IIT, FTII, Pune (Maharashtra) and across several universities in the country! Students and faculty of the Hyderabad Central University were also brutally attacked when they were protesting the return of Appa Rao Podile as Vice Chancellor after the “institutional murder” of Rohith Vemula. Amidst this violent gore, the Delhi police especially, taking orders from the powerful who are their political masters have, over the past six and a half years used brute force against the students of JNU. Najeeb had been pursuing a Master’s Degree in Biotechnology from New Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He was a sharp young man with what his mother hoped was a bright future. But one evening -in October 2016 –after a minor altercation with the aggressive members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the very next day he went missing. Najeeb’s friends have suspected foul play and Fatima started demanding an explanation about what happened to her son. But nobody seemed to have any answers. The police couldn’t explain what happened. It was almost as if he vanished into thin air! Umar Khalid Kanhaiya Kumar |
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