The story starts with the scuffle between left-wing student organizations (led by AISA) and ABVP over an event named ‘Culture of protest’ organized by English department and literary society of Ramjas College.
At the outset I want to make it clear that the reason for protest by the ABVP was not the event but the invitees to the event. Those invited to event included Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid. To refresh the memories of our readers Umar Khalid is currently out on bail, he has sedition charges against him for anti-India sloganeering in JNU (Feb, 2016). The event in JNU was organized to eulogize terrorist Afzal Guru who was charged for terrorist attack on temple of democracy our parliament. Shehla Rashid (EX-VP JNUSU) was the face of protest to free her comrades when they were arrested. She even courted controversy for remarks against prophet Mohammad and was not allowed to enter AMU.
Who is Gurmehar Kaur?
Gurmehar Kaur is an undergraduate English literature student of Lady Shri Ram College for women, who on Feb 22 posted a photo on Facebook holding a placard. The content of the placard is as follows “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 question here arises who is Gurmehar Kaur to decide for every student of India. Let us dissect the statements and understand the inherent contradiction in it, which seems laughable to me. First of all Gurmehar Kaur must understand that ABVP is the largest student organization In India with 3.2 million members and presence across length and breadth of the country.
The question is if every student in India or at least say a large proportion of students are against ABVP then how can it be the largest student organization in the country? Being a student of Delhi University it is expected that she shouldn’t be ignorant about her university at least. ABVP in the previous election had bagged 3 out of 4 seats and the so called Left parties couldn’t make even make their presence felt.
Now! let us go back to issue the issue has been portrayed by the media as a fight between Left and right. The first protest against the event was raised by the students of Ramjas College who didn’t owe any political affiliation to any particular group. This group was led by Yogit Rathi, president of Ramjas college who was elected as an Independent candidate.
As opposed to what Gurmehar Kaur says, the students of Ramjas college are with ABVP and not against it.
When I say, they are with ABVP I mean large proportion of Ramjas Students subscribe to the nationalistic ideology of ABVP. The best example is the tiranga yatra that was held in DU after the incident, with such a massive participation from all sections of the student community. Students who are not from ABVP but have been hurt by anti-national sloganeering of AISA also joined the rally. These give us ample proof of with whom the student community is with.
Nevertheless, everyone has right to speak their mind but even constitution of India doesn’t permit anyone to speak against the Sovereignty, unity, integrity and things which are against public order or morality. Another important thing that we should keep in mind is that the girl made another video with placards the main argument of it was that she was a martyr’s daughter and she doesn’t think Pakistan is responsible for her father’s death. Here we should be clear that she Here we should be clear that she doesn’t represent the children of all martyrs. To quote Randeep Hooda “girl’s voice is important, but not more important than every other citizen. She is in no way representing all the martyrs and their children. It’s her personal opinion and should be taken as such.
Yes, war is wrong but we didn’t start it or persevere with it. We don’t back down from protecting our borders even if it takes our loved ones away. How do we deal with it? With ironical humour.
Indian media since long has been under left domination so has been our education system (universities & Colleges). These have had so much impact on young minds that it is hard to wipe out the damages done in decades in years. Although Indians by large are nationalists but the leftist media has continued to show only one side of the story. The need of the hour is to stand up to preserve nationalism in our nation and make it clear to the leftists with whom students are with.
Jai Hind.