After coming to Delhi and getting enrolled in Ramjas College, the real journey of immense breakthroughs started in my life. My course was an honors in English Literature and my professors introduced me to critical thinking, critical inquiry into social sciences, and I got introduced to different worldviews. In the initial days in my classes, I learnt about ideas I had never thought of or imagined before. The first lecture with Debraj Mookherjee was also one that would stay with me forever. He said we needed to question everything, starting from what we were taught in schools. Lectures with Vinita Chandra started with disbelief from my side, getting scandalised after hearing different notions about gender and sexuality and thinking of them as too radical. Vinita ma’am answered all my questions with utmost patience and never lost her calm to the most regressive defences I showed. I was a homophobe, yes.

Gender in religion slowly started making me very uncomfortable. Questions of choice, will, agency, assertion, wanting representation in all fields of life, visibility in public and political spaces, right to religion or no religion, right to privacy – all these ideas started burgeoning in my personal space.

Conflicting worldviews existing side by side got my mind messier than ever. Questions started piling up, nobody happened to satisfy me with their answers. On the other hand, there were answers in logic, rationality and looking at things from a material point of view rather than ideological. The pull of rationality was strong indeed, but my faith was no less stronger then. A year of questions, insomnia, rapidly losing weight, mind being impossibly active and thinking all the time, mental fatigue and anxiety followed.

Looking at religion critically, I realised that religion would make “us” and “them” of humans in the definition itself, that is where my problems with it started. The first writing tutorial with Vinita Chandra was to analyse John Lennon’s “Imagine” (the lyrics). I’d never heard or read that before. Imagine there’s no religion, nothing to kill or die for. Imagine all the people, living for today. I started imagining, and it wasn’t as difficult as it seemed.

But the process and my journey weren’t all too easy. It was the hardest time for my mental health. My entire worldview was collapsing, and it was a very difficult time. I couldn’t give up so easily on my faith. Somehow I held it very dearly despite the fear, and I had had a hardcore religious upbringing. I had thousands of questions in my mind. I started asking difficult questions about religion at home for the first time. I started reading books about Islam. From Islamic Religious Dawah scholars to modern day criticisms of Islam, I devoured it all. I wanted my answers. I was still waiting for them in religion and not outside. I watched YouTube videos of new age scholars, of converts to Islam to understand why were so many people converting to my faith.

At home, I was made to watch Peace TV (Islamic Dawah Channel) more than ever. In my home, Peace TV had been like bread and water. My parents got quite worried about me, got me Tafseer Ibn Katheer (elaborate Quranic explanations in thick hardbound – 10 volumes.) I read 3 to 4 volumes.

With my professor, Vinita Ma’am.

I would run after teachers right after the lectures and would also catch them over the phone later. They introduced me to such intriguing ideas which didn’t let me sleep at night, how could I leave them alone? The history department at Ramjas History was my second home. I learned as much from it as from my own department. Mukul Mangalik was the man with so much passion for whatever he believed in, for teaching, for new ideas, for the ‘Republic of Imagination’ that I fell in love with him. He taught students to look beyond all kinds of identities and dare to have the imagination of a world where people will be equal, and no kinds of barriers divide them. One heck of a romantic, a dreamer, a believer in people, he was. I was so enchanted by this man that I used to sneak in his classes and recorded some of his lectures and even transcribed them. He would encourage students to talk to him over chai, over lunch in D School, anytime, anywhere. Mukul had been a student of JNU in the best days of JNU. He’d tell us the principles JNU was founded on and the dreams and vision of the university.

He’d always say university means a universe where you’ve got to discuss everything under the sun. So some of these exceptional professors hardly gave two hoots about the syllabus. They taught us to think, question and doubt everything, even them and their worldviews (they would often say that). Teachers were like our friends. Some of them insisted we call them by their names instead of using sirs and ma’ams. They said the terms were hierarchical and colonial and they didn’t like being addressed by them. At first, it was very difficult to call them by their names. Later, we got used to it. They were guides, mentors, friends, pillars and sometimes, during a personal crisis, even our therapists. Slowly it started feeling like a family, only one which wouldn’t dictate what to do and ask for obedience but the one which urged us to think.

I made friends from different departments and also outside the university, joined the gender forum, other democratic solidarity forums for students and had conversations with different people, people from left student parties on different issues. Endless conversations, chai on footpaths, breakfast, and iced tea in D School and seminars. Some friends from SFI were the ones who made me realise how everything is political, the definition of politics was not restricted to just party politics.

The history department provided us space for more ideas. Guest lectures and seminars organised by Mukul Mangalik were the most insightful of all. Dilip Simeon gave lectures on communalism and secularism. Personal anecdotes and the ideas they were introducing us to, along with stories of the cultures of protest in Ramjas’ history were brought alive in time I spent with these people. All these were catalysts. I was inspired and impressed beyond measure.

The history department festivals were the best time of the year. Our family would work together. Organising these festivals helped us imagine and see that equality was possible among people. I had friends from different religions, castes, classes, places, different departments, with different eating habits, and I loved them without thinking about any of these identities. Hierarchies were dissolving with such exceptional professors by our side. The world suddenly seemed a better place. I knew this was a privileged space in many senses, but in comparison to the stories of my Kashmiri Muslim friends studying sciences in North Campus, I never ever got discriminated because I was a Muslim, and a Kashmiri. I indeed was living in a utopia which I’d realise more after coming out of this little space I’d been in.

With my fellow batch mates at Ramjas College.

The seminars in the English department on gender, sexuality, postcolonialism, further ushered in new ideas that felt too radical initially. But professors always remained tolerant and receptive to all kinds of responses, comments, and observations. I got to attend all kinds of seminars, events, festivals, public meetings and understood the importance of freedom to accessibility and mobility. Freedom of navigating through all the spaces, in, around and outside the university helped me realise how important public spaces, freedom, mobility, and access, was in our personal and political growth, especially, as women. Otherwise, we will remain repressed, will think of flying as an illness and never even realise that we are being denied any of our basic fundamental rights to live and exist without fear, intimidation, and coercion.

My course introduced me to political criticism of literature. We analysed Genesis sociologically and politically, and that also sprung new questions regarding the basic tenants of religion. There was so much to the world and knowledge and education outside my shell, my bubble and I would never see if I had insisted on covering the lid of my mind with dogma and not open it and let new ideas enter.

Every day was a day of conflicts, questions, dilemmas and eventually learning, unlearning and relearning. The years slowly and gradually helped my mind to settle, gave me answers, made me aware of my rights, conscious of my privileges, helped in my political progression, made me understand power dynamics and equations at play everywhere and helped me give up irrational fear. It felt liberating. Poststructuralism made me realise how it is absolutely okay to not have answers in absolutes, in black and white, that we need not search for conclusions all the time. Cultural studies helped me see everything as a text, so nothing escapes doubt and critical inquiry, won’t ever believe in anything without doubting and questioning.

During the JNU episode, I followed everything that happened. I read every single piece that was written about the struggle. I came to know of JNU’s history of student movements and the principles JNU was founded on. JNU had stood for education beyond the utilitarian definitions of scoring good marks, getting a job, added to your own privilege, climbing up the social ladder and never caring about equal opportunities and representation for others. I made friends in JNU, had the most insightful conversations with them.

This was the real learning for me: asking questions, interrogating and challenging all kinds of authority, equal education and opportunities for all, equal representation, the absence of discrimination, violence, fear, intimidation despite different identities. Being aware of one’s rights and constantly demanding them. ‘Cultures Of Protest’ (which was also the name of our seminar which was vandalised by the ABVP) gave meaning to my life. Cultures of dissent and protest gave meaning to me more than anything else before.

I didn’t learn to replace one ‘absolute’ worldview with the next, I learned the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn and question everything. I learned that we have the freedom to agree, disagree and to entertain ideas without having to agree with them.

After graduating and finding myself lost in the ‘real’ world, like an outcast, especially when I call people out for being insensitive to the issues of caste, class, gender, race, and they giving religion as an excuse for their misbehavior or bigoted ideas especially on gender, I am called all kinds of things.

In this year’s history fest, I go to Vinita and ask her, “Ramjas was a bubble, wasn’t it? I have seen the real world. It is nothing like we had imagined.” She replied, quietly murmuring in my ear (in typical Vinita tone): “Let no one tell you it was a bubble. Aren’t you the real world?”

This article was first published on Campus Watch, Youth Ki Awaaz – https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2018/06/what-studying-at-ramjas-college-did-to-my-unquestioning-faith-in-religion/

The post What Studying At Ramjas College Did To My Unquestioning Faith In Religion appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Amid a timid media, weak political opposition, and restrictions on civil society, university campuses are among the only spaces left for dissent and debate.

 

Delhi University students protest ABJP hooliganism at Ramjas college. Photo credit: Hindustan Times

On a foggy morning in late February 2017, students from several colleges of Delhi University gathered at Ramjas College to attend a seminar called “Cultures of Protest.” Little did they know that violence from sections of right-wing student parties was around the corner.

In today's India, protest and political dissent have become bad words and anyone who so much as begins to question state actions risks being labelled an anti-national.

And so, while students inside the seminar room were listening to panelists speak on various forms of dissent, about three dozen students began chanting “Hail Mother India” (Bharat Maata Ki Jai) outside. Their voices gained strength with every call.

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarti Parishad (ABVP), the student arm of the ruling BJP political party, led the chanting. Unable to hear the panelists, students eventually left the seminar room. About 30 were reportedly surrounded by ABVP activists and beaten with iron rods and stones. Remarkably, police officers reportedly stood by and watched.

Their story is one of several over the last year where university students in India have borne the burden of pursuing new ideas and difficult discussions – while much of the media has fallen silent on tough questions, and political opposition in parliament is, at best, weak.

Two days after the incident, an English literature student from Lady Shri Ram College, Gurmehar Kaur, posted a photo on Twitter holding a placard that read: “I am a student from Delhi University. I am not afraid of ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me. #StudentsAgainstABVP.”

This image inspired several other students to upload similar photographs. But Kaur stood out because of her lineage: Her father was a captain in the Indian army and was killed when militants attacked an army base in Jammu and Kashmir in 1999 during the Kargil War between India and Pakistan. 

Not just that, Kaur had previously released a video in April 2016 holding a series of 36 placards addressing the death of her father, and calling for peace between India and Pakistan. One of the placards read: “Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him.”

In times when jingoism rules national narratives, the army and security forces are placed on a high alter, beyond the reaches of criticism. Specifically, in India extreme patriotism survives by portraying Pakistan as an enemy.

So, what did Twitter trolls and other jingoistic voices say when the daughter of a martyr didn't portray Pakistan as the enemy? They issued rape and death threats.

“You will understand the flaw in your argument when a Paki brutally rapes you,” read one Tweet.

“I have managed to build a mental wall against threats,” Kaur told me, regarding such messages. She added: “But how is threatening women with rape and death nationalism?”

Kaur's story is tightly linked to stories of protests for freedom of expression on other campuses in India.

"But how is threatening women with rape and death nationalism?"

The ABVP activists who shouted at their fellow students at Ramjas College that late February morning were opposed to two of the seminar's invitees in particular – Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid, scholars from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Both Khalid and Rashid, from the violence-torn state of Kashmir, were central characters in another major incident last year.

On 9 February 2016, students at JNU protested the executions of the 2001 Indian Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and a Kashmiri separatist, Maqbool Bhat. During these protests, some students shouted slogans in favour of Kashmiri independence from India.

Television news channels ran doctored tapes which made it look like the JNU Students' Union President Kanhaiya Kumar was calling for Kashmiri separation from India. (It was later found that he had called for liberation from corruption in the country and not Kashmir’s liberation from India).

Paramilitary forces flooded the campus and arrested Kumar along with two other students. Umar Khalid, another student, was charged with sedition. Shehla Rashid, a Students’ Union leader, became the strong voice calling for their release. (They were released several months later).   

Since then, JNU has become a symbol of anti-establishment thought. Its students are mocked on social media for not respecting the nation and its rich culture. Guest lectures from its professors at other universities have been cancelled. In October 2016, Najeeb Ahmed, a JNU biotechnology student went missing after an altercation with ABVP members, which reportedly left him injured.
 

Library at JNU. Photo credit: Flickr/Manuel Menal

Questions that the Indian state doesn't want to hear – regarding the separatist movement in Kashmir, for instance, or the escalation of tensions with Pakistan, or even regarding inequality and castes (a Dalit student in the University of Hyderabad committed suicide in January 2016 as he couldn't bear caste violence, for example) – are being raised by university students despite the obstacles they face.

Few other institutions can claim to be doing the same.

Political opposition is, at best, weak in India at the moment. There is currently no leader of the opposition in Parliament's lower house as no single party could muster the minimum requirement of 54 seats. The Indian National Congress only managed 44.

Civil society groups are meanwhile fearful of retribution from the government. Last year, the Indian government came down heavily on Greenpeace India, Amnesty India and some other non-profits funded by the Ford Foundation. Their activities are severely restricted as foreign funding for non-profits are managed by the government under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act.

The twin pressures of shrinking funds and excessive online abuse of journalists seems to have also made the media timid. While some sections remain independent, few hard-hitting public interest stories find their way out, and the media falls short of raising tough questions.

This leaves university campuses as some of the only spaces to discuss and debate difficult issues.

"I think we can change the course of history. We have it in us to do so…"

Recently, the JNU student Shehla Rashid wrote: “The Modi government cannot deal with the issues we raise, cannot answer our questions regarding organised scams, communal hate mongering and economic failure… Rather than countering us politically, rather than working on developmental and economic issues, [the government] has directed all of its energy into crushing opposition.”

More than 50% of India’s 1.3 billion people are under the age of 25 and questions of economic development, employment and human rights are critical for them – and the country’s future. It seems fitting that university students are fighting for space to debate complex issues.

Female students have long taken the lead in protesting for social justice. They raised their voices against misogyny and sexism at universities throughout last year, for instance.

“I think we can change the course of history. We have it in us to do so. We want a peaceful world for ourselves,” Shyamali Dutta, a Delhi University student, told me. Kaur echoed her sentiment. “I am,” she said, “a humanist at heart.”

Raksha Kumar is an independent journalist, writing on human rights, gender and politics. She has reported for the New York Times, Al Jazeera America, The Guardian, TIME magazine, Christian Science Monitor, DAWN, Caravan, The Hindu and South China Morning.

This article was first published on openDemocracy.

 

The post Students are Raising Questions the State Doesn’t Want to Hear appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This article was first published on Scroll.in

The post Even some on the Right think the ABVP’s actions in Ramjas were a mistake appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Fact 1. The Seminar “Cultures of Dissent” at Ramjas College was organised by the Literary Society of Ramjas College and the Department of English.

Fiction: This was an Umar Khalid event.

The seminar included several speakers on several issues. Umar Khalid was one of them. It is the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) that can’t see beyond the name Umar Khalid. When the media calls it an “Umar Khalid event”, it sees the event in the same way as the ABVP does. Neither does it interrogate the need for holding such an event, nor does it raise questions about freedom of speech in the university.

What can be an alternate headline? An example from The Wire:

“ABVP Disrupts, Vandalises Literary Event at Ramjas College”

Fact 2. The protest against the cancellation of the talk at Ramjas College was called under the banner of “Save DU”. It was a joint, non-partisan march by students and teachers who wanted to march from Ramjas College to Maurice Nagar Police Station.

Fiction: The protest against the cancellation of the talk at Ramjas College was called by All India Students' Association (AISA).

Neither was the march called by the CPI (ML) affiliated students’ organisation All India Students’ Association (AISA), nor was it led by them. It is true that members from AISA were present, and articles can and must speculate the role the group may play in the upcoming DUSU elections. But several protestors came from colleges which are not affiliates of DUSU. Besides this, students and members of other political groups in the campus, such as Pinjra Tod, too, were present. In fact, ABVP beat up the Students' Federation of India (SFI) Delhi state President so badly that he has fractured his right hand and broken a tooth. To make the protest an AISA versus ABVP one, delegitimizes the moot cause: the question of freedom of speech in a university campus. It is not that the speakers who were invited at the Ramjas seminar agree with each other. They were there to debate, discuss, disagree with their panelists, or with the audience.

Fact 3. The Delhi police was biased in its approach. ABVP was more violent.

Fiction: Both sides suffered casualties.

Please, let us put a stop to this nonsense. Stones, bricks, glass bottles and eggs were thrown from the ABVP side. The Delhi police did form a human barricade. But what happens to stone pelters in India? Surely, all stone pelters are equally punishable under the eyes of the law, but some stone pelters are more equal than others. I am not suggesting that the Delhi police should have used pellet guns, but one set of people receive pellet injuries, another is let scot free. Equality, everyone?

Fact 4. In a video, we (Indian Writers’ Forum) claimed that the reporter was beaten by the ABVP. Several asked, prove they are from the ABVP. I provide three visual evidences.

A photograph in The Hindu where I am shown filming a scuffle:
 

A news report in NDTV. The incident is filmed from 00:25 – 00:30. Click here to watch.

A news report from India Today where the same incident is filmed: Click here to watch. 

Footage that has been recovered from our broken camera. Click here to watch.

I filmed the entire time from the side of the students and teachers. No one touched me. In fact, when I tried to go to the other side and film some bits from the other angle, individual police officers requested me to stay put, saying that it was likely I might get thrashed again.

As I had explained before, facts can be examined. And I lay bare the facts of the case. The following narrative emerges from these facts:

It is time to call a spade a spade. The ABVP side was violent. The protestors showed as much restraint as possible. Journalists, professors, students have been beaten up. We can all come to a consensus that this is not how a university functions.

This article was first published on Indian Cultural Forum

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Thousands of students and teachers from DU, JNU, Jamia and AUD joined in the protest.

Thousands of Students, teachers and many others march yet again. A large number of people gathered today in the “DU Against Gundagardi” protest.
Thousands of students and teachers from DU, JNU, Jamia and AUD joined in the protest.
 

This was in stark contrast to the “tiranga march” called by the ABVP yesterday. Reportedly about a hundred and fifty students gathered with most of them being ABVP cadre. Clearly no common student supported them.

The ABVP’s claim that the violence unleashed by them two days ago, was actually a two-way clash, gets debunked. Today’s march which had a huge number of people and yet it was a peaceful one. There was no violence whatsoever. The protest was against the hooliganism of ABVP. Ironically some people from ABVP stood holding posters which read “we want peace in campus”

Raising slogans against ABVP violence they marched on.

Several political parties expressed their solidarity with the protest including Congress, CPI(M), CPI, CPI(ML), RJD and AAP.

Leaders from various political parties joined in to show their solidarity.
 

Sitaram Yechury, KC Tyagi, D Raja, Yogendra Yadav and Pankaj Pushkar were among some of the leaders who addressed the gathering.

“They cannot win this with their intellectual skill and want to replace it with violence”, said Sitaram Yechury.

 “I want to tell the media, this fight is not Right Vs. Left, It’s actually right Vs. wrong”, said Yogendra Yadav.

 “This is a collective fight to defend our constitutional rights. We will be raising the issue of DU in the parliament”, said D. Raja.

Kanhaiya Kumar, sister of Najeeb, Shehla Rashid, Mohit Pandey also addressed the gathering.

Nandita Narain, DUTA president said that the government has been trying to give autonomous status to some DU colleges. This is an attempt to privatise. Teachers and students had been opposing this move. She said that all this ruckus has been created as a ploy to divert attention from the voices against government’s intentions to privatise.

This is an important moment for DU in terms of exposing the politics of ABVP. Clearly the students will not be intimidated by the brutal, lumpen politics of the ABVP.

The protest concluded with a call for a march on Saturday 4th March at 2 pm, from Mandi house to Parliament.

Photos: IndiaResists

This story was first published on Newsclick.

The post Delhi University March Against Gundagardi appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Video Courtesy: Kafila.online

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I have nothing to do with any political organization, as a student of University Of Delhi, I was at #Ramjas to attend the seminar as we were to discuss Bastar , Kashmir and North East there. ABVP attacked us. I witnessed their hooliganism and even recorded it with my phone.
I was appalled at how these handful of goons were assaulting the students, abusing us and making indecent gestures. I was right there when ABVP goon threw a stone at the conference hall, breaking the window panes. Even caught them Justifying the violence saying, “gundagardi aur bhagwakaran hi chalega, bilkul chalega!” on camera.
The next day a march was called against their hooliganism. I went class to class to tell students about this march. There was anger amongst common students, no one wants violence in campus.
Police was present when we gathered outside Ramjas with our placards. There were students from DU, JNU, JMI, AUD. There were teachers & journalists present.
Suddenly ABVP attacked us, AGAIN. They manhandled us, punched & abused us like anything. They were pelting stones at the protest march. Many of my friends got seriously injured. Even teachers were not spared. Journalists too were attacked and their cameras were broken. It all happened in the presence of Delhi Police.
Then ABVP , with the help of BJP IT cell came up with false accusations. I was present there & I had video clippings that I posted on social media. But being just a common student activist, I never had an army of trolls OR an IT Cell for back up.
I’m being harassed since three consecutive days by trolls. Being accused of being a Naxali, a paid propagandist and what not. Today I noticed random anonymous accounts threatening me of Violence. (See Screenshots)
As a girl living all alone in this city, I feel unsafe to step out. They’re everywhere, roaming around on their bikes with saffron bands.
But ABVP, I AM NOT SCARED. I’ve NEVER been a fan of your ideology or your politics but today I say you disgust me. You talk about defending your motherland by harassing students & activists? I spit on your nationalism.
I WILL NOT SHUT UP and let this go. I’m going to fight back. This is about my University and I’m not taking any step back.
#StudentsAgainstABVP

(Courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/Ratnpriya.m)
 

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February seems to mark the month of rage and protests for students in Delhi. February 2016 witnessed the assault on JNU by the combined might of ABVP, corporate media, Delhi Police and the BJP and a fightback by JNU students and faculty that stunned the powers that be . February 2017 has come upon us with the news of ABVP assaulting students at Ramjas college and disrupting a seminar with an equally vibrant response taking shape in the university.

It was also the February of 1982 when Delhi University erupted with a massive mobilisation of students from across several colleges in protest against the murderous assault on Dilip Simeon, a lecturer at Ramjas College by a coterie close to the principal of the college. The backdrop to this was allegations of corruption against the college administration and a severe clamping down of voices of protest against the principal. Simeon’s crime was that he joined a group of hunger strikers demanding release of salary of Sita Ram the head gardener, who had been denied his dues without any inquiry. On 16 February, Simeon was accosted near Qudsia Park by six young men who had followed him in a car all the way from home. He was beaten severely with iron rods, His left leg broken in two places and the upper part of jaw permanently damaged, with five teeth lost. But for his helmet, he might have suffered severe skull injuries too.
What followed was a massive protest of students under the banner of Committee Against Goondaism that first led to the principal being forced to go on leave and finally his suspension for trying to barge into the college accompanied by goondas. Kartar Singh, has the distinction of being the first ever principal of Delhi University to be suspended for breach of peace and violence. For that entire year Ramjas college became a battle ground between students and faculty who were struggling to bring in a more democratic functioning in the college and the ABVP and NSUI backed goondas who for the first time were feeling the heat of resistance and a student unity that was neither scared of them nor cowed down by their violence. On more than one occasion they were chased out of the college premises by students no longer willing to put up with their intimidation.
 

It was those years that gave Ramjas College the legacy of being a space alive with progressive ideas, discussions and events; and that is what bothers organisations like ABVP who are committed to the task of snuffing each and every sign of a critical knock on their doors; and therefore the persistent attacks. As one old Ramjas hand remarked, “We weren’t finished then. And we aren’t finished now”.

The post Ramjas College Fought Against Goondaism in 1982, and Won: Rahul Roy appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Gurmehar Kaur, daughter of Kargil martyr Captain Mandeep Singh, changed her Facebook profile picture holding a placard which read “I am a student from Delhi University. I am not afraid of ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me. #StudentsAgainstABVP”.
 

“The brutal attack on innocent students by ABVP is very disturbing and should be stopped. It was not an attack on protesters, but an attack on every notion of democracy that is held dear in every Indian’s heart. It is an attack on ideals, morals, freedom and rights of every person born to this nation,” she said in a Facebook status.

“The stones that you pelt hit our bodies, but fail to bruise our ideas. This profile picture is my way of protesting against the tyranny of fear,” she added.

The literature student’s classmates and peers started sharing the post, prompting students from various universities across the country to change their profile pictures with the same placard, as the initiative went viral.

Kaur’s Facebook post so far has 2,100 reactions, 3,456 shares and 542 comments.

Ramjas College had on Wednesday witnessed large-scale violence between members of AISA and ABVP workers. The genesis of the clash was an invite to JNU students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid to address a seminar on ‘Culture of Protests’ which was withdrawn by the college authorities following opposition by the RSS student wing.

(With inputs from PTI)
 

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The ABVP were joined by some members of Delhi Police, which reports to the Centre’s BJP government, in thrashing the protesting AISA students and members of media present on the campus to cover the event.

The genesis of the clash was an invite to JNU students Umar Khalid, facing sedition charge, and Shehla Rashid to address a seminar on ‘Culture of Protests’ which was withdrawn by the college authorities following opposition by the ABVP.

Almost a dozen students and four journalists were injured in the clashes. Journalists who were victims of the violence unleashed by the ABVP members included Catch News’s Aditya Menon and Vishakh Unnikrishnan, Heena Kausar of Hindustan Times and Taruni Kumar of The Quint.

ABVP members were, however, kind to their ‘own’ journalists as they reportedly welcomed the arrivals of Zee News’s crew. Aditya said that there was a sense of excitement as soon as the reporter from Zee News arrived at the spot.

Some ABVP workers were heard saying, “Hamaray waalay aa gaye (Our own journalists have arrived now).”

The incident caused a huge public outcry as civil society members and political leaders began to condemn the violence unleashed by the ABVP workers.

Leading the condemnation was Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who termed the incident ‘shameful.’

He tweeted, “Shameful. Look at how Modi police treating women. I warn Modi ji- students se panga mat lo, ye khade ho gaye to apko barbad kar denge.”

On Thursday, an embarrassed Delhi Police had no option but to be seen as taking action against three of its personnel, who were placed under suspension.

Undeterred by public condemnation and widespread outrage, the RSS’s students’ body registered its presence in Khalsa college a day later by forcing the administration to cancel street programme, scheduled there.

Now the anger against the BVP is fast spreading across India with the students’ wing being termed as viciously violent outfit, hellbent on crushing free voice by using the help of friendly police.

Students up and down the country and now changing the display images of their social media pages by holding placards that say, ‘I’m not afraid of ABVP.’

Here are some of the images;

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter
 

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