Amid widespread protests across educational institutions all over the country, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is conducting a march on Tuesday in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act from the Arts Faculty situated in the Delhi University's North campus. The ABVP began its march from the said location around 12 pm in the afternoon calling for a stop to the violence and to stop using the students as a face to falsely propagate against the CAA.
Sidharth Yadav, the State Secretary of ABVP Delhi told Edex that the march has been called with the aim to spread the message that there's propaganda being spread in the name of CAA protests and it should stop immediately. "The atmosphere of violence in Delhi is concerning. It is being circulated that DU will be under lockdown, this march is against that, there will be no lockdown, students here are unanimously supporting the Citizenship Amendment Act," he says.
Sidharth alleged that there were a handful of people who were preventing students from taking their exams on Monday at DU. "The violence that took place at DU yesterday shouldn't happen again, we can't let the vandalism happening outside to infiltrate within the campus. With this march, we are trying to convey that there's propaganda being spread in the name of CAA protests. Students don't resort to violence or such means, they can discuss, debate but they don't put fire to public property — people who are spreading this in the name of students, dressing up as students and creating this violent atmosphere, they must be exposed. That is our aim," the ABVP state secretary said.
Ashutosh Singh, the State Media Incharge of ABVP Delhi also agreed with Sidharth saying that they have supported CAA from the beginning and they condemn the violence across campuses in India. Ashutosh also reitarated that some students were not allowed to write their exams. "Some left students organisations stopped common students from entering the exam halls yesterday near the Department of Social Sciences. DUSU wanted to speak to students but they weren't allowed. Conduct your protests but why stop common students from expressing what they want to? Those students wanted to take exams, they didn't want to join the boycott, you can't force them," he added.
The left-leaning students' organisations and the students from the DU English Department had a different take on the entire issue. The All India Students' Association (AISA) and other leftist student factions in DU have also called for a protest from the Arts Faculty at around 2 pm, against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The DU English department in an official statement said that "We believe in the cause, that the various recently erupted movements in the country have been fighting for, given the unconstitutional and Islamophobic nature of the CAA. Having said that, we wish to further add that we distance ourselves from the statement released in support of the CAA by the Delhi University Students Union, and strongly condemn it. We also assert our right to dissent and promise that we shall dissent till we see the health of this crumbling democracy restored to normalcy. We also call on other student groups to support the cause and extend their solidarity."
