By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
If the Banaras Hindu University and the UP Police thought that lathi-charging at female students would curb down the protests that have been going on in the University, they couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, the shameful actions of the police have only acted as a catalyst and now, the protests are only getting bigger.
Reacting at the actions of the police which included attacking students in their hostels, various social activists, civil society representatives, student leaders and common people came together to protest against the police violence a night before. The protest, which included ex-MP Rajesh Mishra, several other Congress leaders, activists from AISA, NSUI, SYS and several other students’ groups, expressed solidarity with the students and asked the government and officials to respond to the demands of the female students. Various leaders from outside Varanasi also joined the protest.
However, it must be pointed out that a major change from protests on Saturday was those female students who were actually protesting for their demands are now nowhere in the scene. BHU administration ordered them, verbally, to vacate the hostels by Sunday. To ensure that the students ‘complied’ with these orders, water, electricity and internet services were cut since Saturday night.
Despite such measures taken by the University, the protest is not going to slow down. Sakshi Singh, a student and resident of Mahila Mahavidyalaya, told TwoCircles.net, “Now we know that nothing is going to stop us.”
BHU administration has ordered to register cases against at least thousands of students of the university, even after saying that it was the “influence of outsiders” which was behind these protests. Reacting to this, Singh said, “Policemen stood over us that night while beating us. We were man-handled. Now we fear nothing.”
After the controversial remarks of vice-chancellor of BHU Prof GC Tripathi and his orders of using violence in the campus has sparked a new demand for the removal of the VC and a high-level probe against him. A petition demanding the same has surfaced on change.org, which is also gaining substantial traction.
It is also important to point out that the movement for a safer campus started by hundreds of girls of Banaras Hindu University is slowly gaining the support from the rest of the Banaras and other regions around.
When we went Live on Facebook on Sunday, we spotted several people from the general public who were carrying household items but joined the protest to show their solidarity with the girls. Sugandha Mishra, alumni of BHU and a member of city’s BJP’s wing, also joined the protest. Mishra said, “I understand that this issue is beyond politics. No one is supposed to do politics here. We are here only for girls because they fought for the rights we never thought of doing in our times.”
Yesterday, Varanasi administration promised to few girls present in the protest march to fulfil their demands. Varanasi DM Yogeshwar Ram Mishra agreed to all demands of the girls from installing security cameras at the hostels to the stationing of female guards at girls’ hostels. DM had also promised to probe into previous night’s violence.
Meanwhile, several activists and politicians continue arriving in Varanasi to keep the movement alive until the girls come back at the University. Given that the movement is also calling for the head of the VC, the movement is only likely to get stronger in the coming days.
But ABVP, as always, is trying to steer the movement in a very different direction. The appointment of GC Tripathi, a Brahmin, was a change from the appointment of a series of several Thakur (Rajput) Vice Chancellors in the University, and this was not of course, acceptable to the Thakur lobby inside the campus. No wonder then, that the Thakur lobby in the ABVP is trying to ensure that the VC is fired for their vested interests. One ABVP activist anonymously told us, “I know that the DM has announced to meet every demand, but this VC has to go at any cost. That is what we will try to achieve here.”
However, the covert attempts of the ABVP to push for its own interests has not gone unnoticed by the students. Divakar, a member of Joint Action Committee, saying, “I am saying this openly that we have no connection with the ABVP’s agenda or protest, they can say whatever they want to.” The same stand has been taken by NSUI and AISA at the University.
The protest has also had an impact on residents of Varanasi, who have expressed outrage after hearing that the girls were beaten for asking for their rights. Gaurav Kapoor, a Varanasi-based entrepreneur, told TwoCircles.net, “This is an example of a failure of University administration. They could have avoided the situation just by providing the security measures to their students.”
“We know BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh with the help of women voters which rose because of various luring announcements and schemes. Now it is shameful that police is beating women in the same state,” added Kapoor.
Apoorva Yadav, a 43-year-old housewife from Varanasi, said, “I don’t know anything about the politics behind all this, but I am sure that those girls deserve a justice. They deserve security in a campus, where boys have always been criminal minded.”
Heena Goswami, former general secretary of NSUI at JNU, has been in Varanasi to join the protest of the girl students. Goswami said, “The girls who were leading the protest were without any political support and that made this protest unique. Only those girls can decide where this movement will head, but now the University is threatening girls and they are scared.”
Protest across various central universities in India is happening. But according to Goswami, those protests need to be consolidated in Varanasi. “Alumni of BHU should be here to stand with the girls.”