After the alleged attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students' Association (BAPSA) President Om Prakash Mahato and a fellow BAPSA activist on March 14, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad issued a statement on Wednesday calling the incident "undoubtedly pre-planned and orchestrated by BAPSA president in active collusion with communists-Jihadists forces to target ABVP by assaulting and humiliating innocent students."
BAPSA had accused ABVP activists of attacking the BAPSA president and another activist while they had gone to paste posters for a public meeting to commemorate Manyavar Saheb Kashiram, a politician and social reformer’s birth anniversary to be held on March 15.
The ABVP in their statement, speaking of the same incident, wrote, "This episode is a classic example of propaganda, lies and misinformation being spread to target one set of innocent students, whose only mistakes were that they tried to stop the ill-intended forces (BAPSA activists) from tearing apart a poster anchoring the nationalist ideology in the campus." Accusing the Left of being violent and causing atrocities on the marginalised section, ABVP stated that it is "morally demeaning" for BAPSA to come in close association with communists and their likes to "satisfy their ego."
"Left has a history of violence and bloodbath, wherever they are present on the campus as well as across the country. The atrocities perpetrated by the left on Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the marginalised are well written, discussed and talked about. Also, selective discrimination or the marginalised and backward section of the society has been a hallmark of the Left intelligentsia in the pursuit of knowledge and its generation, who have monopolised the discourse for most of post-independence is interesting to note that the need to establish student organisation such as BAPSA would not have emerged had the Left been unbiased in its approach and adopted an Inclusive and holistic approach to knowledge generation and dissemination," the ABVP statement explained. The right-wing students' organisation finally said that it is strongly committed "to fight back and expose them, within legal and constitutional boundaries set up by the visionary luminaries of India, including Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar.
READ ALSO: After student leader attacked, BAPSA accuses ABVP of targeting marginalised students
Responding to what the ABVP stated about the incident and about BAPSA in general, Mahato tells us, "Whenever you complain against them, they will always come up with some kind of discourse or narrative that the other party was the perpetrator, they like to play the blame game. When did the ABVP start believing in debate and discussion? Have we ever seen them do that? No, they always resort to violence. We want our voices to be heard, want justice, we are not here just because of the Left. That way that we can say that the ABVP is here because of the RSS and BJP, who are currently in power and are not doing much for the marginalised communities. We formed the organisation because our rights are being protected, our promises are not being delivered. And this is not the first time ABVP has been accused of violence on campus. Multiple FIRs had been filed against ABVP members but the police have also not taken any action." He and other members of the BAPSA have also said that the administration hasn't taken any action yet regarding the recent incident.
We reached out to the administration for comment, but they were unavailable. This copy will be updated if/when they respond.
