Condemning the assault on Tamil students by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) last week, a protest was held on campus on Saturday, February 25. The protest, organised by the JNU wing of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), was held under the banner ‘Reclaim JNU’. Speaking to TNM, Nazar, a PhD scholar who had suffered injuries during the attack, said, “The ABVP targets the identities of all those who resist the Union government on campus. In this case, it was Tamils.”
The ABVP, the student wing of the Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), attacked students on February 19 during a screening of the satirical Hindi film Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. The RSS-affiliate reportedly took issue with a portrait of Shivaji, which they alleged had been removed. Also according to early reports, a memorial meeting was being held for Darshan Solanki, a Dalit student from IIT Bombay who had died by suicide earlier this month after allegedly facing systemic caste discrimination.
Several students were injured in the attack by the ABVP. According to reports, even ambulances rushing injured students to hospitals were blocked. Further, students alleged that the Delhi Police refused to intervene despite witnessing the violence. The ABVP also allegedly vandalised portraits of Dr BR Ambedkar, Periyar, Bhagat Singh, and Karl Marx.
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