Last week, Ramjas College witness clashes over the invitation of two JNU students for talks in a seminar. Students, media persons, a professor and police officers also received injuries during the clash.
Last week, Ramjas College of Delhi University witness violence and clash over a seminar that invited JNU students, Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid. The nationalist student organisation ABVP staged a protest that took violent turn injuring many students, media persons covering the news, and also a Professor named, Prasanta Chakravarty who was allegedly pushed, kicked repeatedly, and also tried to be strangled with his muffler by the mob.
According to a report, the professor has been in and out of the hospital since the incident, and on the morning of February 26, the professor passed out due to ‘shooting abdominal pain’. He was then admitted to the emergency ward of Fortis Noida.
On a Facebook post, he wrote ‘diagnosed with contusion and concealed spasms on the right abdomen and on spinal extensor muscles. effected by heavy boot kicks perhaps. a couple of ribs also impaired--will require protracted treatment. pain needs to abate first now. intravenous meds and drips on. if that does not work, other possibilities will be explored. mlc report of Feb 22 followed up by the hospital authorities.’(sic)
The incident has shocked the country, and the Delhi police have also been criticised for its inaction to stop the violence.
Previous the professor posted on his Facebook that ‘In the past two days, circumstances have overtaken my life. But just like any event, the social value of newsworthiness will subside. And that is a good thing. What ought not to subside is awareness of the constant climate of intimidation in many parts of our country now. Indeed, in many places of the world now, since it is a perfect fascist moment we are passing through. I feel a bit perplexed, and inadequate about narrating personal stuff. I am simply not good at that. I shall be most happy to go back to classes and to reading groups and to my poetry. I only wanted to make two points, and then let us move on.
One, that I have got enormous and genuine support and faith from my students. And as I tried to say yesterday on television, I believe that it is they and their compatriots all around the nation who can bring about a change in real terms across campuses and then connect campus issues with the larger political and social contexts. It is for them to diagnose and act upon the time that they are passing through. Indeed, seize time and fortune and not be detached from their times. It goes far beyond empathizing with me or with other newsworthy events that shall continue to happen.
The second point is about difference and solidarities: there has and must remain ideological and positional differences among the best of friends. And we must keep on highlighting them, for thinking people who are passionate about life must build up poetics and politics on subtlety and positional nuance. But there is also a question of existential solidarity at this hour. If we are able to come together now, not by sublimating our differences, but by bringing forth those and yet building up broad fronts of togetherness and planning and hard strategy that these times demand, only then can we take on these regressive, narrow and debilitating brand of populism that haunts our nation and the world right now.
There must be a broad coalition now, silently building up. And years of work lie ahead. A painstaking job. The Right is in ascendancy today because they have done and are doing this painstaking job of hate-mongering effectively, at the grassroots level, for decades. We have to take on that kind of a might. I have no clue how. But we must rise above our silos and egos and come together--students, teachers and everybody else who wish to see a different climate from the one we find ourselves in today.’ (sic)
Ever since the incident, ABVP has been sharply criticised for the spreading violence in the campus and students have been posting photos holding ‘I am not afraid of ABVP’ placards using the hashtag #StudentsAgainstABVP. On the other hand, ABVP has denied the charges. The police are still investigating the incident.
