Arundhati Vashishtha Anusandhan Peeth (AVAP), founded by late VHP leader Ashok Singhal, recently organized a two day seminar “Shri Ram JanamBhoomi Temple: Emerging Scenario” in the Arts Faculty of the Delhi University starting on January 8, 2016. As the Head of the Peeth, Subramanian Swamy led the seminar. The venue was booked by a member of National Democratic Teachers’ Front, the right-wing teachers’ group on Campus. On the morning of January 9, the University Campus was converted into a veritable police camp, with a large number of armed personnel. This, however, did not deter the protestors. Students and teachers of various left organisations, Congress and AAP students’ wings continued to raise slogans for several hours against the communalisation of campuses and made several attempts to break through the barricade.

Subramanian Swamy told the media that a “blueprint” for building the Ram temple will be unveiled at the seminar. In his inaugural lecture, he emphasised that the construction of the Ram Janambhoomi temple is important for the realization of Ashok Singhal’s dream. Later in the day, he tweets an offer (threat!) “We Hindus offer Lord Krishna's package to Muslims–give us 3 temples and keep 39,997 masjids. I hope Muslim leaders don't become Duryodhans”. On the second day, his tweet read “Finally today with help of police force deployment of Namo Govt we held our seminar and made left wing loonies look like pathetic orphans”. He claimed that the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya could start before the end of the year. With the recent reports from Ayodhya suggesting that truckloads of bricks have arrived there for the building of the temple, the seminar must be viewed as another step in that direction.

By holding this seminar in a premier central university, the BJP-RSS-VHP aimed at polarising the youth. Soon after its announcement, some young men on the evening of January 5, applied saffron paint to the Vivekananda Statue at Arts Faculty.

Image Courtesy: Abha Dev Habib

The Peeth, which could have organised the seminar in any paid space in the city, wanted to host it at DU to gain legitimacy, to claim later that the “blueprint” was an outcome of a seminar at a University. The Kar Seva for the Ram Janambhoomi Temple and the divisions it will create seem to be essential to the BJP’s plan for 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections in UP. They have little else to offer.

The Ram Janambhoomi seminar also seems to be part of a larger design to penetrate into Central Universities, which are centers of mass education. Yogi Adityanath was invited to Allahabad University [1] by the ABVP members on the Students’ Union. Similarly, Ramdev was invited to be the keynote speaker at the valedictory ceremony of the Vedanta Congress at Jawaharlal Nehru University [2], At both Allahabad University and JNU, students’ opposition saw cancellation of the programmes.

In order to dilute the “intolerance” debate in the country, Swamy and his followers labelled the protest against the seminar as an act of “intolerance”. They tried to equate the protests against the communalisation of Campuses to the unprecedented attack on freedom of speech and expression in the country and on its plural culture by BJP-VHP-RSS.

Universities as centers for providing space to one and all are also under threat. The termination of services of Sandeep Pandey, professor in the department of chemical engineering at IIT-BHU for his “anti-national activities” is a recent example. Professor Pandey, a Gandhian, is a renowned social activist and a Magsaysay award winner.

Ever since the NDA Government came into power in May 2014, there has been a multi-pronged attack on the education sector. The re-writing of school textbooks has begun [3] and insistence on including the Gita as part of the school curriculum has followed[4]. Both moves are part of the Hindutvawaadis and their time-tested patterns of hegemonising the education sector. The attacks on institutes of higher education began with the appointments of Heads who little known for their academic work or contribution(s).  The appointments of Gajendra Chauhan as Chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), [5] Y. Sudershan Rao to head the ICHR [6] and Pahlaj Nihalani of the Censor Board [7]aare some glaring examples. The hosting of a seminar on the Ram Janambhoomi issue seems to be part this overall design: reaching out to a section of the youth with a hegemonic divisive agenda and through this, communalising the educational environment.

The Hindutva agenda seems to be closely linked with the Government’s plan of furthering the commercialisation of Higher Education in tune with the requirements of WTO-GATS terms. When the protesting FTII students met Arun Jaitley, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, he hinted that if the students did not cooperate “they might have to face the bleak prospect of shutdown and eventual privatisation”. Weak heads of institutions find it difficult to resist the Government’s agenda, and are ready to bend backwards, surrendering the autonomy of the institution.

In the 2015-16 the overall education budget of the Centre is down from Rs. 82,771 crore to Rs. 69,074 crore, revealing the Governments priorities! In the last one year, both the IITs and CSIR labs have been told to generate their own funds (for research) and the budgets to Universities and Colleges have been slashed on one pretext or the another. The Ministry for Human Resources Development (MHRD) has also tried to stop the non-NET fellowship for M.Phil and Ph.D. students. Disregarding and violating autonomy of Universities and their needs, the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) with common syllabi prepared in the University Grants Commission (UGC) was also imposed unilaterally, without any discussions, despite agitation and protests from teachers and students.

Converting Campuses into zones of communal hatred will only help them to quickly bring down the premier public funded universities, to shoo away all those who can afford or take loans to study in private universities, domestic and foreign.

Image Courtesy: Abha Dev Habib

The Question
Leaders of independent India realized that the country needs to look forward and saw education as the means of fighting socio-economic disparity and superstition; to further and deepen the ethos of secularism and democracy. They identified education as a means of developing the scientific temper, a much needed ingredient for building a modern India. This became the rationale behind providing public funded education.

Universities, embedded in a larger social fabric, are not completely free from the ills prevalent in the society. While many public funded universities have been completely destroyed, a few have resisted the collapse and tried to generate and maintain a culture of critical thinking. Generations of teachers and students have worked hard to create an environment where young men and women coming from various sections of society can interact and partake of a meaningful education.

The communalisation of universities will lead to a degeneration of this academic environment, place faith and identity over scientific temper and critical thinking. It is important to remember that today’s Afghanistan and Syria were not created overnight. The question before us is to once again choose between faith and rationality.

The only way out (Ekhee Rasta)
As a teacher opposing the Ram Janambhoomi seminar at DU, I was invited to a television debate on the issue. Reacting to my opposition, the RSS spokesperson, Vinod Bansal was quick to throw their definition of nationalism: "अगर भगवन राम के प्रति आस्था नहींहै, तो देश के प्रति भी आस्था नहीं है "(If one does not faith in Lord Ram, then one has no faith in the nation).  His definition did not shock me. The fact that he was, however, brazenly able, to say this,  without any hesitation on a national channel brought the looming crisis home to me. The threat is real and imminent.

The only way forward is to keep resisting as we have done at Delhi University. The only way forward is also to create situations whereby a Delhi and a Bihar can repeat in other states.

(The writer is Joint Secretary, Democratic Teachers’ Front and Member, Executive Council, Physics Department of the Delhi University)

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A Joint Press Conference of several organizations affiliated to the left was organized at 2 pm today, January 8, 2016 to protest the Delhi University’s permission to host a seminar on the Ramjanmabhoomi issue on January 9. See https://sabrangindia.in/article/protests-against-colouring-du-saffron

The protests against the seminar by Arundhati Vashishtha Anusandhan Peeth ‘to mobilise public opinion for the Ram Janambhoomi temple’ is growing. Addressing the meet at the gate of the Arts Faculty, which is the chosen venue for the proposed seminar, students and teachers reiterated their demand that permission for such a seminar that actually seeks to spread the politics of division within the University and permission should be withdrawn.

Speakers included professors, Shaswati Mazumdar, Germanic and Romance Studies and President, DTF, Sunil Kumar, History Department, Ali Javed, Urdu Department, Najma Rehmani, Urdu Department, Rukmani Sen, President, Ambedkar University Delhi Faculty Association and Madhu Prasad, member, AIFRTE. The press conference was also addressed by representatives from students’ organisations including Chinglen Khumukcham (NEFIS),   Rahul Sarkar (AIDSO), Aman Nawaz (AISA), Prashant Mukherjee (SFI), Deepak Gupta (PACHHAS), Subhash (KYS), Amrita (AISF), Divya (Disha), Ayantika (DSU), Chaitanya (Nowruz) and Kuldeep (BSCEM).

Professor Sunil Kumar (Department of History) pointed out that in the last five years, the DU administration has done everything possible to suppress the culture of debate. The administration has been consistently denying space for teachers and students to hold meetings or discussions. The permission to the seminar on Ram Janambhoomi to the Peeth clearly shows that the administration is patronising a particular ideology. It was this same administration that forced the Department of History to remove Ramanujan's Three Hundred Ramayanas from the syllabus.

Professor Rukmani Sen from AUD said that it is time for academicians and students to come together from across the universities against this attack by the forces of majoritarianism and against the communalisation of educational institutions. She said that this seminar has to been seen as yet another way in which education is being reoriented to further VHP-RSS agenda.  

Professor Shaswati Mazumdar stressed the point that universities are places where students from various backgrounds come together in pursuit of meaningful education and that the communalisation of universities will lead to breakdown of liberal academic environment.

Professor Madhu Prasad pointed to the twin attack on public funded universities. While the Government has reduced funding to education and is going ahead with the agenda of offering Higher Education to WTO-GATs, seminars like this aim at communalising the environment of public funded universities.  

Other speakers criticized the position taken by the DU Administration in claiming that they did not know the content or the topic of the seminar at the time of booking. If that is the case, then the permission could now easily be withdrawn. The double speak by the University that anyone could hire the hall for holding any activity does not hold true as speakers pointed out how the hall had been denied in the past to other organisations and groups. Professor Ali Javed recounted how he was denied permission to hold seminar on the crisis facing Higher Education but this seminar was given permission so easily! Speakers also stressed how the seminar is clearly not an academic activity or even intended to be debate, borne out by statements by leaders of the VHP that the issue of the temple at Ram Janmabhoomi was “a matter of faith”. Statements that the blueprint for the construction of the temple would be prepared at the seminar also clearly indicate how the university campus is being sought to be polarized.

Students said that the major issues facing them like the access to quality education and employment opportunities are not being addressed while activities such as this seminar seek to divide the students on communal lines and divert the attention from the main issues before the youth and the country. They also condemned the university administration for not addressing the issues facing students and for denying spaces to them for various activities while giving permission for such dubious seminars.

Save Du will organize a cultural protest programme tomorrow from 10 am to 2 pm at Arts Faculty with the participation of writers, artists, cultural activists, lawyers and educators. Student participants in today’s programme and in tomorrow’s cultural protest spoke with determination of their resolve to not allow this destruction of the secular fabric of the university and the country. The need of the hour is to stand together in this fight against the politics of hate and to foist the plans of the Sangh Parivar to spread communal poison.

(Press release issued by the All India Democratic Students Organisation, All India Students Association, All India Students Federation, Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch, Common Teachers Forum, Disha, Democratic Students' Union, Democratic Teachers' Front,
Janwadi Shikshak Manch, Krantikari Yuva Sangathan, North-East Forum for International Solidarity Nowruz, Parivartankami Chhatra Sanghtan (PACHHAS) and the Students' Federation of India)

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An all out bid to communalise the temperature on the Delhi University campus appeared afoot as “unidentified persons” climbed onto the Vivekananda statute situated in the midst of the Delhi University Campus and started painting it saffron! The incident, late on Wednesday (January 6, 2016) comes on the eve of a controversial ‘seminar’ on the Ramjanmabhoomi issue being hosted by the university’s Arts Faculty and conducted by an outfit linked to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
 
Meanwhile in a strongly worded statement, as many as 15 organisations affiliated to the Left have come together to protest the two day seminar ‘to mobilize public opinion for the Ram Janambhoomi temple’ which is being organized by Arundhati Vashishtha Anusandhan Peeth in Arts Faculty, Delhi University starting on January 9, 2016.
 
The text of the protest statement:
It is very clear that the seminar is not an academic activity, as it is not organised by any department of the university but by an organisation that has a clear design and preconceived ideas about the outcome of such an exercise. This seminar must also be seen in connection with other recent reports from Ayodhya suggesting that truckloads of bricks have arrived there for the building of the temple. By holding this seminar in a premier central university, the RSS-VHP clearly intends to polarise the youth and create a divisive atmosphere.

Universities are supposed to be institutions that bring young people from all backgrounds, including all faiths, together in the common endeavour of the pursuit of knowledge. Universities should be spaces for secular education. The holding of a seminar on such a nationally divisive issue is a blatant misuse of the University. We may recall the recent controversies around moves to hold programmes in JNU and Allahabad University with Ramdev and Yogi Adityanath as participants. Both moves were successfully resisted by students and the University as a space open to all was defended.

It is shameful that the DU administration has given permission to hold such a programme. The same administration continuously denied university spaces to the democratically elected bodies to organize meetings and programmes. In allowing this divisive and communal programme, the University administration has shown disrespect to the academic environment of the University. The DU administration is bending backwards to please the BJP-led Government.

It is deplorable that the Government is imposing academic dilution on the public funded universities through hurriedly imposed programmes like CBCS and starving them through fund cuts on one hand and on the other damaging the academic environment in universities by pushing their divisive agenda. We demand that permission for the conduct of this programme be withdrawn forthwith. We also call upon the university community and citizens to resist the attempts by the RSS-VHP to spread communal disharmony through such programmes.

The statement has been signed by All India Democratic Students Organisation
All India Students Association, All India Students Federation, Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch, Common Teachers Forum, Disha, Democratic Students' Union, Democratic Teachers' Front, Janwadi Shikshak Manch, Krantikari Yuva Sangathan, North-East Forum for International Solidarity, Nowruz, Parivartankami Chhatra Sanghtan (PACHHAS) and the Students' Federation of India.
 
Incidentally the outfit that has been permitted by the Arts faculty to organise the seminar, Arundhati Vashishtha Anusandhan Peeth, is a research organisation founded by late VHP leader Ashok Singhal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). The attempt at painting saffron Vivekananda comes two days before. DCP (north) Madhur Verma told sections of the media that, “..the  patrolling staff spotted some students painting the statue. They immediately apprehended those persons and informed the university faculty. The proctors and senior security staff of DU arrived and the students were handed over to them. Since no complaint was given by the university administration, no action has been taken against them”
 
According to eyewitnesses, the incident took place at about 8.30 pm. Five persons climbed on top of the black statue with the help of ladders, with paint cans and brushes in hand, and began painting the statue in saffron colour.

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