People's Democracy

STUDENTS are up in arms in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, under the banner of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU), against the RSS that is seeking to create lawlessness in the campus and resorts to violence on spurious pretexts. This year, the local unit of this fascist organisation again resorted to violence when the students opposed the holding of their Gurudakshina programme in the campus. The RSS organised this programme right in the central administrative block, clearly with the connivance of some supporters in the higher rungs of the university administration.

The RSS function took place on August 10.

This year the RSS’ money-donation ceremony was ‘graced’ by none other than Vishwa Hindu Parishad supremo Ashok Singhal. When the Students Union protested against the programme on the ground that no religious or communal organisation must be allowed to use an official space or building, pro-RSS AVBP activists and outsiders attacked the protesting students.

According to the Students Union sources, by allowing the RSS to hold the function within the administrative block the university administration has violated the relevant norms.

More than 40 teachers, including key functionaries of the teachers’ association, also came out against the function and the subsequent violence. They pointed out that a JNU building or hall had never been used for functions of this type, and expressed protest against the permission given for it by JNU authorities. They also condemned the violence in which some students, including girls, were beaten.

The fear among the students is that if the administrative block is used today, tomorrow it may even be the VC office. In any case, the university has a tradition of open meetings where politics is openly discussed, and not of secret meetings. They feel that the authorities are trying to appease the RSS and the present government.

The students are demanding that the JNU’s democratic culture be upheld. They have started holding marches and meetings against the function and the violence that followed, wherein, the students allege, the student wing of the BJP and the RSS were involved. They are also demanding action against the lumpen elements who targeted and attacked select students.

Though the function took place on August 180, its echoes are reverberating in the campus to date, and the students and teachers are feeling agitated. They have started to categorically ask whether sectarian and cultist rituals have any place in a cosmopolitan university that has been known all over for upholding secular principles and where leaders of all shades of opinion come to hold open functions, instead of any secret ceremonies as the RSS is organising. (INN)