TCN News
The women’s leadership summit, 2019 scheduled for 3 days from 26th March to 28th March that began yesterday at the Aligarh Muslim University was disrupted by the male students. Around 40 to 50 male students created a commotion shouting slogans and holding placards that read “ Arfa Go back” .
And they even stopped Arfa Khanum from speaking at the summit.
When the women students tried to stop them they got more agitated and used foul language and then began tearing down the posters and burning the banners.
Arfa Khanum is one of the distinguished speakers invited for the summit along with other women leaders like Arundhati Roy, Teesta Setalvad, Vrinda Grover among others.
The reason cited by the students for causing the commotion and disrupting an event that was first of its kind, organized by the undergraduate women students of the university in the Kennedy Complex, is a tweet by reputed journalist of ‘The Wire’ Arfa Khanum.
She has in her tweet, greeted Holi quoting Bulle Shah, the Sufi poet of Punjab. Here is her tweet:
होली खेलूँगी कहके बिस्मिल्ला।
होली मुबारक दोस्तों। जमकर रंग बरसे। @DaminiY26747626 pic.twitter.com/13zhOqT2Sl— Arfa Khanum Sherwani (@khanumarfa) March 20, 2019
But many women students feel the tweet is only a pretext to disturb the summit, the real reason is that the ego of the male students has been hurt because the summit was very well organized and drew a lot of praise from many participants and faculty. Also that the summit was organized in the main section of the University campus and was star studded without any corporate sponsorship which might have sparked a sense of jealousy.
The male students also demanded that the women students hold the summit in the women’s college campus which also in a way meant that they felt their ‘space’ was invaded. They even dismantled the canopy thus forcing the summit to be carried out in the women’s section of the University.
No one from the administration of the University intervened to stop this chaos. And it is alleged that the group of students led by the vice president of the AMU students union had the backing of the AMU administration.
The women students complained to the administration of the University but no action has been taken yet.
Meanwhile the Leadership Summit has been moved to the women’s college campus of the AMU where it is in progress for the 2nd day .