Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on Sunday wrote an open letter to Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, asking “how can a mother accept the punishment of her children on the basis of biased probe reports and doctored videos”.
Mr. Kumar, who is out on bail in connection with a sedition case, also referred to the JNU high-level enquiry committee report on the controversial February 9 event. The report has indicted several JNU students for participating in the event, organised to commemorate the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, and for allegedly raising anti-national slogans.
Using Mother’s Day to invoke the mother in the Minister, Mr. Kumar, who has attacked Ms. Irani in the past for her reference to all students as her children, wrote: “We are trying hard to study in the warmth of your motherly love. Under your reign, we are learning how to study despite police canes and hunger”.
“Today, a friend asked me how under [Prime Minister] Mr. [Narendra] Modi’s regime — where besides our own mother we also have mother cow, mother India, mother Ganges and mother Smriti — could [Dalit scholar] Rohith Vemula die? I am asking you this because I have no answer.
“The same anti-national friend also said that mother Smriti’s Ministry sent several letters to punish Rohith and was also responsible for withholding his fellowship for seven months,” he wrote further.
Seeks factual reply“In a great country like India, can a mother drive her child to suicide? Can a mother accept punishments on her children based on doctored videos and a biased probe? Your children, starving for 11 days, are asking you this question. Please reply, if you find the time. The friend also called you an ‘anti-rational mother of anti-nationals’. I hope you will prove this allegation false in your factual reply,” he added.
