The Shri Venkateshwara College under Delhi University has postponed all of the seminars and functions it had scheduled for March. In a notice dated March 1, Principal P Hemalatha Reddy said that no event would be held on campus till further notice. The letter was first sent on WhatsApp groups and then posted on the notice board.
The principal is believed to have said the “hostile situation” on campuses was the reason for their decision. “I asked the principal about the letter yesterday [Thursday] and she said that she was postponing because she did not want any unruly gathering of students on campus,” Abhijit Kundu from the department of sociology told Scroll.in. Kundu added that there has been tension on campus ever since the Ramjas College incident on February 21. The college students’ union leader, Vinayak Sharma, was arrested after he was involved in a scuffle with students of another organisation near the SGTB Khalsa College recently. “I suppose the principal wanted to avoid any gathering,” Kundu added.
Shri Venkateshwara College is not the first institute to cancel its programmes with this kind of reasoning. While Ramjas College may not host its annual cultural festival, Mosaic, this year, a street theatre festival at SGTB Khalsa College was called off amid growing fears that the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad might clash with other student groups at these events.
The concerns have risen since the recent violence and protests at Ramjas College. On February 21, after Jawaharlal Nehru University student Umar Khalid was not allowed to speak at a seminar at Ramjas College, clashes had broken out between members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, who had opposed Khalid’s speech, and the All India Students’ Association. More than 20 students and several journalists were injured in the violence. On February 23, three senior police personnel were suspended for “high-handedness with media persons and students”.
After the violence and protests, the daughter of an Indian Army soldier started an online campaign against the ABVP. Cricketer Virender Sehwag mocked Gurmehar Kaur, and Bollywood actor Randeep Hooda patronised her after an old picture of her holding a placard with the sentence “Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him” went viral.
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