[Reader-list] Dont let the Hindu right take over our universities!!

[Aarti Sethi]

Dear All,

As someone who done a large part of my education in DU and JNU I am
more and more distressed at the way in which our universities are
becoming locked in the strangehold of the facist Hindu right. The
incident which friends have reported is not new, as Sanjay mentions.
It is one more shameful incident in the long list of assaults that are
becoming routine on democratic spaces and voices. What is a university
for if not to discuss matters that affect us all in a free and
non-threatening atmosphere? Perhaps this is exactly what the right
fears. That even as their tentacles spread rapidly through our polity,
the university still stands as  space where its violent fascist vision
of this country is challenged, resisted, questioned, fought. last year
the ABVP created mayhem on the night of the presidential speeches in
JNU. They attacked a dalit candidate, broke down the stage, and
injured students watching the debates. The police had to be called in.
Last year we screened Sanjay's film in JNU. A week before the
screening the ABVP tried to stop the event by threatening violence. It
was only because a large number of students and the left mobilized
that they were dissuaded, and the event took place. When the first
queer collective in JNU - Anjuman- had tehir first public meeting in
JNU three years ago, the ABVP again attacked students for no reason
except that for these bigots same-sex love is against their perverse
definition of "indian" culture. How long will we let them hold us to
ransom? How long will this be allowed to continue?

 The ABVP make the campus unsafe for everyone who studies there. The
ABVP lumpens are routinely involved in sexual harassment cases - I was
stalked for 6 months by an ABVP goon when I was an M.A student in Arts
faculty. A friend and I were routinely accosted in the lawns by the
self-styled protectors of "indian" culture because we were women
smoking in public. And I promise you, many women have far worse
stories to share.

I urge everyone to come in large numbers tomorrow and insist that the
authorities take immediate action against those responsible. As DUSU
president Nupur Sharma has a moral responsibility to ensure that
action is taken against the goons from her own party who are
responsible for today's incident.

In solidarity
Aarti