Communalising the BHU campus

While students in Jawaharlal Nehru University, who are running a campaign demanding the rollback of a huge hostel fee hike and the withdrawal of a ludicrous hostel manual, get beaten up and arrested, students of Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, are getting away with a communal agenda targeting professors and university officials. The students of the Sanskrit department at BHU laid siege to the Vice Chancellor’s residence for 14 days, demanding that the appointment of Firoze Khan be annulled because he is a Muslim. Students of BHU’s south campus, located in Mirzapur nearby, have also been running a communal campaign against a senior university official, a woman, who removed a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh flag from the playground on November 12, advising students to desist from such activities since “these are sensitive times”. Protests by the students started immediately, and from November 7, a motley group of students sat on a dharna in front of the Vice Chancellor’s residence, staging their unique protest. Justice Malviya, who is also the Chancellor of the university, issued a statement denouncing the protest and advising students to get back to their studies because “a good teacher is hard to come by and the students have been blessed with a good teacher and they should make use of his gyaan.” Justice Malviya also said that he suspected some teachers had a hand in provoking the students and advised the teachers of BHU to guide the students in the right direction instead of misleading them.