[Reader-list] ABVP FORCES DALIT SINGER AND ACTIVIST TO WITHDRAW

[Asit Das]

THE HINDU | *  MUMBAI, August 14, 2014*

*ALOK DESHPANDE*

Sheetal Sathe was arrested on charges of backing Naxal activities
[image: Sheetal of Kabir Kala Manch]
Sheetal of Kabir Kala Manch

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has forced St. Xavier’s
College here to retract an invitation extended to Dalit activist and singer
Sheetal Sathe. Ms. Sathe was arrested in April 2013 for allegedly
supporting Naxal activities and later granted bail.

She was invited by the organisers of St. Xavier’s annual festival,
‘Malhar’, to participate in a panel discussion on ‘The invisibility of
caste’ on Thursday. With the ABVP threatening to disrupt the festival if
she was allowed to attend, the organisers withdrew the invitation on
Wednesday.

An ABVP delegation visited the college a few days ago and warned both the
management and the students against inviting Ms. Sathe. “She is an
anti-national. Such people should be barred from entering colleges because
they will influence the youth. If the college sticks to its stand, we will
close down Malhar,” Yadunath Deshpande, ABVP’s Mumbai organisational
secretary, told*The Hindu* .

Clamping down on such programmes was “in the national interest,” he claimed.

Ms. Sathe is a member of the Pune-based radical cultural group Kabir Kala
Manch.