THE ABVP’s sudden clout across campuses is not difficult to understand. In some cases, administrations view them sympathetically and may even be ideologically aligned to them. But often the top officials of a university or college may also want to keep the ABVP and its masters happy. This is plain simple cowardice.
In the midst of so many other newsy things going on, the elections in different states being the most prominent, some stories do not get the play they should. Yet, it is important that the public at large gets to know about them.
One such is the suspension of a faculty member in a college in Jodhpur. Rajshree Ranawat, an assistant professor in Jai Narayan Vyas University, was placed under suspension because she had invited a JNU professor to come and speak. Nivedita Menon was one of the speakers at a seminar on ‘History Construed through Literature: Nation, Identity, Culture’, which Ranawat had helped organise. Her subject was ‘The Concept of Nation and Nationhood’, which normally shouldn’t
have worried anybody, since academic conferences/ seminars on such subjects are held all the time.
Except that rumours spread that she had said that Kashmir was not part of India and the soldiers worked because it was a job and not because they were patriotic. Menon denied she ever said that but the rumour was picked up, the BJP’s student wing Akhil Bharati Vidyarthi Parishad protested and the university administration, true to form, filed a complaint against her with the police, rather than take the student union to task. As we have seen in many cases, the state usually gives in to the loudest protest and the loudest protests come from the ABVP.
None of those who have objected to her talk, including a retired professor who claimed that she had ‘insulted’ India could give actual examples of such insults. But that did not stop the ABVP from protesting against her and the university suspending Ranawat.
Ranawat has been quoted as saying that she had expected letters of appreciation for organising the talk, instead she was suspended.
The ABVP is also in the news for disrupting a two day seminar in Ramjas College, Delhi, where JNU student Umar Khalid was to speak. The Parishad said it would not allow an ‘anti-national’ to speak in the college. Khalid was one of the students charged with ‘sedition’ for raising ‘anti-India slogans’ in JNU last year. Has he been found guilty of the charge? No. But that did not stop the ABVP from going on a rampage and get the seminar cancelled.
The ABVP has been in the news in almost all campus disruptions in recent times. It was their complaint that led to the suspension of Rohith Vemula who later committed suicide in Hyderabad Central University. A complaint from the ABVP was taken seriously enough by a union minister who complained to his counterpart Smriti Irani in the HRD ministry who in turn wrote to the VC who suspended Rohith and two others. Unable to draw on his scholarship, Rohith committed suicide and since then, the argument has centered around whether he was a Dalit or not. This is the clout that ABVP has.
In Allahabad University, the ABVP got the administration to cancel a lecture by journalist Siddharth Varadarajan despite the fact that he had been invited by the president of the student union, Richa Singh.
The ABVP’s sudden clout across campuses is not difficult to understand. In some cases, administrations view them sympathetically and may even be ideologically aligned to them. But often the top officials of a university or college may also want to keep the ABVP and its masters happy. This is plain simple cowardice.
Educational institutions are not just degree awarding factories, churning out graduates for the work force. They are places of learning, of inquiry, of debate. They open the mind, helping youngsters explore various facets of an issue so that they can reach their own conclusions. They challenge certitudes, pushing the young impressionable minds to see other points of view. Lectures, discussions, debates, seminars, conferences, by not just faculty but also well-known names in their own fields, provide food for thought to youngsters who are still in their teens and fresh from school. The college years prepare them for adult life, when things are complex and often lead to confusion. One may not agree with a Nivedita Menon or an Umar Khalid, but by listening to them, one can at least know what is it that one doesn’t agree with. Without that, it is just prejudice, which can lead to closed minds.
Given the current environment all over the country and the ABVP’s rising clout, one can only fear that more such instances, when speakers will be shouted down and stopped from speaking, will take place. And anyone wanting to expose students to new ideas is in danger of being suspended. Who wants to take on the powerful university establishment? Better to just keep quiet and maintain a low profile. Ranawat has said that no faculty member will from now on risk inviting scholars again—and she has a point. This will lead to a generation of students who will have a fixed idea about the world around them—ideas that will not change throughout their lives. I can only pity those youngsters who will never know what wonders lie in the real world, because they were never allowed to explore it.
The author is a Founding Editor of The Wire.
He is a journalist and writer based in Mumbai.
