Kashmir food-stall cancelled in JNU after ‘threats’ from right-wing group
After ‘harassment and threats’ by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing, Kashmir students have been barred from installing a food-stall at an international festival in a prestigious varsity in Indian capital, New Delhi.
The International Food Festival at the Jawaharlal Nehru University sees participation from students of different countries. Interestingly students from the Tibet region in China also participate in the annual event, but Kashmir students, who had the permission and had fulfilled the formalities for participation, have been now been denied the permission after ‘threats’ to the organizers by the members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Parishad — an affiliate of the right-wing BJP which is in power in India.
A group of Kashmir students told that after a go-ahead by the organizers, they had arranged different food varieties from the region and were making arrangements for the event which is held on January 26, but they have now received a communication from the organizers that Kashmir students won’t be allowed to participate.
“We are very sorry to inform you, at such a short notice, that the Kashmiri Stall has been cancelled for the international food festival. The reasons have been conveyed to the Kashmiri students in the meeting conducted on 24 January, with the ISA president,” the notice to the Kashmir students from the International Students Association— which organizes the event— reads.
In the meeting with ISA president, the Kashmir students were told that ‘organizers of the festival started receiving threats from the ABVP’.
“The president and other members of the organization were harassed and intimidated. The organizers received open warnings from ABVP, threatening them with disrupting the festival in case Kashmir students were allowed to open their food counter,” the group of Kashmir students said. “International students who organize the festival were threatened with legal action and deportation.”
A member of the ISA said: “It is disappointing that after we approached the JNU administration, the university rector turned a deaf ear to our complaints and grievances against ABVP. We have no other way.”
Varsity students said it was for the ‘first time that on the demand of ABVP an event by a group of students has been called off’ at the varsity which has ‘a history of preserving democratic rights’.
The Kashmir students said “threatening student bodies and intimidating students individually does not change the fact that Kashmir issue is an international dispute and the people of Jammu and Kashmir are fighting for their right to national self-determination.”
“Universities are supposed to be centers of free inquiry, speech and expression. However, in the recent months universities and other democratic spaces have been under attack from right wing elements across India,” a student, who is a member of Left-leaning students’ group, said. “It is disheartening to see that groups like ABVP succeed in converting the liberal and free space of JNU into the ‘sacrosanct national space’.
As a premier institute of learning, the JNU has ‘resisted right-wing attacks tooth and nail’. “However, in recent days even JNU is experiencing pressures from the right wing fascist forces,” the student said.
Like other students from ‘stateless nations’, the students of Jammu and Kashmir have ‘struggled’ to share their views and concerns on issues confronting them in the Indian mainland. “JNU campus was known for its diversity and democratic space and it is unfortunate that the university administration cowed down to the pressures of right wing forces in the campus,” said one of the Kashmir students from the group.
The student said: “A university official told us they could go ahead with the food stall, but ‘would have to met the AVBP demands.”
One of the demands of the right-wing student group was to not use Kashmir stall as a name. “They want us to name it Indian stall,” the students said. Kashmir students were scheduled to put their foods next to the Tibet stall.”We fail to understand this. They allow Tibet students and bar us,” a student pointed out.
“We expect a response from all the political groups on the campus that sends a strong message to the authoritarian administration and its political masters that, the voices of students in the name of India’s ‘integrity’ cannot be gagged. We continue with our struggle to reclaim the JNU space and stand by the fact that Kashmir is a disputed territory. We hope and expect solidarity from the larger student body and all political groups,” the students said.
