By IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, 05 Nov 2015: Calling the RSS remark against the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) a “conspiracy” against the country’s premier university, students of the university organized a protest march on Thursday and later joined the “Occupy UGC” movement, which is spearheaded by research scholars against the University Grants Commission (UGC) decisions allegedly “promoting privatization” of education.
Panchjanya, the mouthpiece of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), recently called JNU home to “a huge anti-national block which has the aim of disintegrating India.”
Expressing anguish over the RSS statement against the university, JNU student leader Ashutosh said, “You might have seen it before as well when the FTII students staged the 139-day long strike, they were called Naxalites. If a Muslim raises questions, he is branded a terrorist, if women start questioning, they are called sluts, if the poor aboriginals raise their fingers questioning, they are also called Naxalites. We want to ask them (RSS) whether pure patriots are found only in the Sangh.”
“If JNU’s only sin is to solidarize its voice with any fight waged anywhere in the country, and this act of voicing concern is anti-national, those who allege this have to be questioned first. JNU students had been the frontrunner of the protests during the days of Emergency, and it’s JNU students again who have stood firm against the privatization of education. Now we are agitating against the WTO (World Trade Center) and the UGC decision of scrapping non-NET (National Eligibility Test) here,” said the JNU student leader.
Accusing the RSS of maligning JNU’s name, Ashutosh added, “Maligning a leading voice of the country this way is a known conspiracy of them (RSS), and people know this well. People will give them a fitting answer when the prices of Tur pulses have become 250 bucks.”
With the JNU students joining the protest, the Occupy UGC movement has gained a momentum. Apart from the JNU students, Swaraj Abhiyan leader and ex-UGC member Yogendra Yadav too, spent the yesternight at the protest venue near the UGC office in Delhi. Calling the UGC diktat against non-NET fellowship a Tughlaqi farmaan (arbitrary diktat), Yadav said, “Being a former member of the University Grants Commission, I am ashamed to witness that students have to sit for 16 days in protest for their minimum demands.”
“The only demand they have is the fellowship for PHD scholars, which already existed and should have been extended to other universities, and the fellowship amount, which should have been raised per the government’s own policy, has been scrapped overnight without citing any valid reason, that too, in a meeting where commission members decided to raise their own fees. Shameful this is!” added Yadav who is leading Swaraj Abhiyan – a countrywide political movement against corruption.
