Bengaluru: Students up in arms against 'casteist' skit at Jain University fest; video goes viral

Bengaluru: A group of students has started an online petition against a college festival skit with 'casteist' and 'offensive' portrayals, The News Minute (TNM) has reported.

The petition, published on Jhatkaa.org, says that the college contingent from Jain University’s Centre for Management Studies (CMS) staged an "incredibly casteist and insensitive" skit at the event. The petitioners, who remain anonymous, approached the organisers citing that the skit normalised caste discrimination in the name of humour, only to be dismissed, reports TNM.

According to the report, the skit was enacted by ‘The Delroys Boys’, the theatre group from CMS, as part of ‘Mad-Ads’, a segment at the fest where participants are to advertise imaginary products along the lines of humor along with playfully making fun of other colleges participating in the same. 

“The skit they performed showcased a man from a lowered caste background trying to date an upper-caste woman. The makers turned BR Ambedkar into ‘Beer Ambedkar’ and used several other problematic phrases like ‘Why be Dalit when you can be D-Lit’, to supposedly spark humour,” one of the petitioners told TNM. 

“It is unacceptable that the script for the performance went through multiple rounds of approval before being enacted on stage. The same insensitive script was enacted on February 5 by the same contingent at another college fest, sponsored by Under25 in Bengaluru,” reads the petition.

TNM also reported that a complaint was filed on Thursday, February 9, before the Superindentent of Police, Maharashtra, by Aakshay Bansode, State Member of the Vanchit Bahujan Yuva Aaghadi. It urged the police to treat the complaint as an FIR and take necessary action against the performers and the university authorities.