By Anirudh Singla
Hooliganism at its best
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is one of the self-proclaimed Student-serving organisations of Delhi University. It explicitly mentions in one of its Students for Development initiatives that it aims to promote the right perspective towards the need of holistic and sustainable development in students. Clearly, either ABVPs dictionary of baloney is severely clouded by right-wing communal thoughts or students in this country have lost the right to assert their opinions, without getting assaulted and abused.
From sabotaging a Kashmiri film fest in Hyderabad to filing complaints against the Amnesty International for hosting a programme that merely sought justice for victims of Human Rights violations in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, ABVP has done it all.
Such a vicious display of Hooliganism and an attempt to thwart opined youthful minds is certainly not the first of its kind. Moreover, judging on how things are handled with such negligence, it certainly wont be the last.
Lawless in no mans land
[su_pullquote]Such a vicious display of Hooliganism and an attempt to thwart opined youthful minds is certainly not the first of its kind and it certainly wont be the last.[/su_pullquote]
Umar Khalid, once a proactive member of the radical minded association, Democratic Students Union (DSU), was arrested last year. He was charged with sedition. It was claimed he wanted to re-ignite the flame of Afzal Gurus sacrifice by initiating the commemoration of the anniversary of his execution. He was invited by Ramjas Colleges Literary Society to shed some thoughts on The War in Adivasi Areas, the PhD thesis Khalid was currently working on. However, the event had to be cancelled due to certain uncontrollable elements. Defining the terminology, Uncontrollable elements with disproportioned allusions, some people believe in the concept that putting on a façade of nationalism and injecting others with the psychology of divisiveness creates a Culturally-stable atmosphere.
Clashes between AVBP and DU, AISA members | Picture Courtesy: Hindustan TimesA heated argument acted as a precursor to a violent clash between activists of ABVP, AISA and other students from the Delhi University (DU). Soon, things crossed the threshold frequency in a spectrum of gross indecency. Protestors against the seminar resorted to throwing huge stones that left the conference venue completely incapacitated. Female students were inappropriately touched. Going to the protest site without appropriate (Appropriate is an understatement, actually) precautions was a fools entry to a Lawless No Mans Land.
Besides several students getting severely hurt, three teachers of the Delhi University – Mousumi Bose, Prasanta Chakraborty and Suvrita – were gravely injured and rushed to the Hindu Rao hospital. A perturbed segment of students and teachers marched towards the Maurice Nagar police station then. They were calling for a stringent course of action against ABVP members who resorted to such demeaning actions then. The protestors damaged phones and camera equipment of several journalists also. With the AISA members trying to rescue the ABVP-Captives, their repeated attempts were terminated at ABVP protesters behest.
Crisis of nationalism emanated by its supposed proponents itself
A standard police reply, Everything is under control dispelled any minute faith in law-enforcement. Parents of these students were scared to death, imagining the conditions their child was resorted to.
A temple of education is supposed to profess idealism in thought and propel opinion into motion. Instead, it saw its students getting beaten up and face threatening propositions from goons and uncivil elements of the society. Is this justified in the name of nationalism? Any subtle message is ground down to the binaries of uncivil and violent disturbances. Someone very immaculately summed up the current vibes by saying,
[su_quote]What prevents the argumentative Indian from concluding that the crisis of nationalism has been brought on by the proponents of nationalism themselves? Violence is not an idea, though it may serve an idea. Nationalism is an idea that does not serve any idea other than itself.[/su_quote]
Such incidents have to stop. It does not need to stop on the premise of them being deemed as immoral protest. They must be shut down because the true spirit of nationalism is embodied in the right to assert ones opinion. Democratic ideals must be placed as ones defence, not violence.