The Faculty of Law of Delhi University cancelled a talk by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan 20 minutes before the event on Saturday, citing “unmanageable behaviour” of the students, reported The Indian Express.
Bhushan, however, alleged that there was no student unrest and that the university authorities must have received instructions from their “political bosses” not to allow him to speak at the event. Bhushan was supposed to deliver a lecture on the topic “Challenges to the Indian Constitution”.
After Bhushan was not allowed to enter the college, he gave a short lecture on the road outside the campus.
“When I started speaking to students who wanted to hear me, under a tree, univ[ersity] officers and police told me, I can’t do it on campus,” Bhushan said in a tweet.
Addressing students outside the college, Bhushan said that the people do not have any freedom to talk or enter a campus. “What has happened to India’s democracy?” he asked.
One of the organisers, Vivek Raj, told The Indian Express that they had received permission to hold the event at a seminar hall. Students, he added, have been asking for keys of the hall since March 25 but the administration refused to give.
“We told them that the room has been closed for the last two years because of the [Covid-19] pandemic, so we need the keys to clean the room and get it in order,” Raj said. “We then started a protest, after which the authorities called the police.”
Raj alleged that Deputy Proctor Gunjan Gupta had told the students on March 25 that the order to cancel the event came from higher authorities. “Today [March 26] in the notice they are saying it’s because of our behaviour,” he said.
Proctor Rajni Abbi claimed that neither Bhushan nor the topic of the lecture was the reason for cancelling the event.
Abbi, a former Delhi mayor and Bharatiya Janata Party leader, alleged that the protesting students had an altercation with the police and misbehaved with her.
“I don’t think in any reasonable manner we could have handed over the keys to them yesterday [March 25],” she told The Indian Express. “If something untoward happened at night, if they got drunk, who would have been responsible? They created a huge problem in the library, they were banging doors. Because of this we decided to cancel.”
Abbi said that the decision to cancel to event was not fair to Bhushan, but asked who would have been responsible if a fight broke out.
“They [the students] are politically motivated people,” she alleged, reported PTI. “They have shown this before the event itself. They are raising slogans and creating a ruckus, such behaviour will not be tolerated on campus.”
The proctor also said it was wrong on Bhushan’s part to deliver a lecture outside the campus.
“The speaker, regardless of who it is, should also have thought that if permission was denied, should he have delivered the lecture there?” she asked.
Bhushan said that it was his duty to to meet the students and talk to them as the event was cancelled without any good reason.
“Today was a classic example that a speaker whose views are against this government will not be permitted to speak in this university,” he added.
Meanwhile, Abigyan, the president of Delhi’s All India Students Association unit, alleged that the police used force against the protestors and several of them were injured, reported PTI. The All India Students Association is an organisation affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation.
The police, however, refuted Abigyan’s allegations.
In a similar incident in Madhya Pradesh, an event scheduled to be attended in Indore city by author Shamsul Islam, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and others on Friday was cancelled by authorities in charge of the venue citing “government orders”.
The authorities at the Textile Development Trust, which runs the venue Jall Auditorium, had told the organisers that the event will not be allowed due to “unavoidable reasons”. The trust’s secretary said the administration had directed them not to hold the event.
Islam, a retired professor of the Delhi University, had said that he has been holding talks across the country on the need for religious harmony.
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