Flash
Lost in speed
Someone sent an anonymous complaint to the HRD ministry accusing the Ambedkar Periyar Student Circle at IIT-Madras of spreading "hatred" against the Prime Minister. At issue is a pamphlet reproducing the speech of Dravidian university academic R Vivekananda Gopal on Dr. Ambedkar which accuses the government of a "Hindutva agenda", "assisting multinational corporates to loot Mother India" and "communally polarizing the people by the ban on cow slaughtering, ghar wapasi program and promoting Vedas".
It would not be surprising if this quickly snowballs into a Dalit vs anti-Dalit controversy. It’s tailor-made for identity politics umbrage. But there is another issue very much at stake here that should not get lost in the furore about caste politics – it’s about free speech in an institution of learning. This decision, if it was taken because of the content of the pamphlet, goes against that basic tenet.
It’s surprising that the HRD ministry didn’t just dismiss the complaint out of hand. And it’s even more shocking that IIT, in the words of another BJP leader in another context, chose to crawl when it had been merely asked to bend. The Indian Institute of Technology sounds like the Indian Institute of Timidity today.
IIT-Madras' ban on student body that criticised PM Modi is a national shame - Firstpost
It would not be surprising if this quickly snowballs into a Dalit vs anti-Dalit controversy. It’s tailor-made for identity politics umbrage. But there is another issue very much at stake here that should not get lost in the furore about caste politics – it’s about free speech in an institution of learning. This decision, if it was taken because of the content of the pamphlet, goes against that basic tenet.
It’s surprising that the HRD ministry didn’t just dismiss the complaint out of hand. And it’s even more shocking that IIT, in the words of another BJP leader in another context, chose to crawl when it had been merely asked to bend. The Indian Institute of Technology sounds like the Indian Institute of Timidity today.
IIT-Madras' ban on student body that criticised PM Modi is a national shame - Firstpost
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