Claiming outcry from the students’ organisations over the recent violence on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus and communal developments in Karnataka, Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College has cancelled BJP spokesperson Guru Prakash’s talk on BR Ambedkar on Thursday. The BJP IT department head Amit Malviya posted the message given by one of the organisers in the college to Prakash on social media. The organiser, whose name wasn’t revealed, stated that the educational institution doesn’t want “the College atmosphere becoming a political space instead of an academic one”. The BJP spokesperson was further told by the organiser of the talk that “we regret to inform you that the talk that we had scheduled for Ambedkar Jayanti, on 14th April, needs to be called off. There has been no such order from the administration, however, there has been a huge outcry from the student body stating their disagreement with this talk.” The BJP leader termed the cancellation of the event an “epitome of intolerance”. “I was invited by LSR college for the event on Ambedkar Jayanti but was informed yesterday that due to a protest by the students union group, the show has been cancelled. It’s an epitome of intolerance,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that a Dalit person was stopped from speaking on Ambedkar Jayanti. It shows the dictatorial and totalitarian way of thinking of such groups especially SFI who are stopping people from speaking. They’ve lost their relevance on the ground,” Prakash added.
In the message informing the cancellation of the talk, the BJP spokesperson was told that the decision was taken against the backdrop of “recent developments in Karnataka and JNU”.
“Since, we would like to refrain the atmosphere of the SC/ST Cell, especially LSR from becoming a political space instead of an academic one, it was in the best interest of the institution to cancel the event. We are very apologetic for this action that too, on such short notice. We are even more regretful of wasting your time,” stated the message shared by the BJP leader from the organiser of the talk on Ambedkar. Notably, a scuffle took place among two student groups in JNU on Ram Navami day allegedly over the food issue in hostel canteens, which had left six persons injured.
The cancellation of the talk in LSR College has drawn sharp reactions from the BJP, with Malviya calling it the “political assertion of Communist sponsored student bodies”. “The intolerant ideological and political assertion of Communist sponsored student bodies, that permeates our academic institutions, is a bane. It obstructs free expression and assimilation of competing ideas,” Malviya tweeted.
