The main Opposition party Congress on Thursday lambasted the NDA Government for vitiating the atmosphere in institutions of higher learning and asked it to refrain from questioning the patriotism of its political rivals.
Making this observation while participating in a debate on JNU and Hyderabad University controversies, leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad took a dig at BJP and said the Congress has a long record of sacrificing for the country and the
party’s foundations are very strong. He also said Rahul Gandhi need not prove his credentials in this regard as he lost his father and grandmother to terrorism.
Elaborating upon the so-called deteriorating atmosphere in various Central universities of the country after the NDA came to power in 2014, Azad said a director of Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) Delhi resigned followed by another director of IIT Mumbai putting in his papers. Azad also referred to the Film and Television Institute of India(FTTI) Pune controversy over appointment of its director and lauded the students for their struggle for more than four months.
Narrating the sequence of events leading to the suicide of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad Central University, Azad read out a letter given to him by the deceased parents. It said Rohith urged the Vice Chancellor of the University to hand out small doses of cyanide and a piece of rope to Dalit students thereby highlighting persecution faced by them in the varsity, Azad claimed.
He said the ABVP, students wing of BJP, was coming to centre stage whereas similar organizations of Congress never had such patronage from the Government. Azad said Manmohan Singh was in power for ten years and the youth wings of the Congress never approached him.
Stating that Congress built institutions but the BJP was ruining them, Azad said his party was all for punishing those raising anti-India slogans. But it seems now “Ahmed ki topi Mehmood ke sar par hai,” he said claiming wrong persons were arrested in connection with the JNU issue. He also accused the BJP of shielding its MlA and lawyers affiliated with the party, who allegedly indulged in violence in Patiala House court premises.
He cautioned the Government about the power of youth and said the French government had to resign in 1968 and Nixon regime had to face massive student uprising in 1970 over the US war against Vietnam and Cambodia.
JDU-U leader K C Tyagi said it was alarming that more than 14 Dalit students had committed suicide in the last four years in centres of higher learning and wanted strict implementation of laws to prevent atrocities against SC and ST. He also claimed that the SC Commission was a toothless tiger and said the next agitation will be to have adequate representation of Dalits in judiciary.
D P Tripathi(NCP), who is also former JNU Students Union President, termed Rohith’s suicide as institutionalized murder and said the ruling dispensation had created an atmosphere of fear and discord in universities.
Referring to the incidents in Patiala House courts and JNU, he said “gangsters were now teaching patriotism” and lamented that the entire JNU was now branded as den of anti-nationals besides Hyderabad University. Urging that reconciliation was the need of the hour, he said JNU was under attack as it had always opposed communalism and fascism.