Latest Sanghi Attack on University: Mahasweta Devi Play branded 'Sedition'

Latest Sanghi Attack on the University: performance of Mahasweta Devi play is branded 'sedition'! At Central University of Haryana, Mahendragarh, English Department students performed Mahasweta Devi's noted play 'Draupadi' on September 21

ABVP, RSS leaders joined by Modi's Minister for State Rao Inderjit reportedly claimed the play is 'anti-national' because it depicts an Adivasi woman confronting the commander of security forces who have raped her.

After the play was staged, a teacher at the department cited statistics from the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) on custodial sexual violence against Adivasi women.

Reports coming in suggest that several persons with links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Minister have mobilised ex-service-men by showing them clips from the play and the short speech cut out of the overall context. They are demanding that the teachers and students be booked for 'sedition.'

I am informed that there is a sizeable a menacing crowd at the University gates, and a distinct danger to the safety of the English Department students and teachers.

I notice in a news report that the VC, while saying that the 'protests' against the play are politically motivated, has constituted an enquiry committee including himself, as well as some literature teachers and an army man into the event. This is disturbing.

Can army men or even VCs now act as censor board for academic departments and faculty?

Can an academic department not perform and discuss a play by a world-renowned writer, whom even Modi and Shah claimed to mourn on her death not long ago?!

Is it even possible to discuss Draupadi as a play without talking about the context of systematic custodial atrocities against Adivasi women in India?!