The signature campaign demanding ‘democratic campuses’ by a section of students from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, has reached President Pranab Mukherjee. The campaign has garnered over 400 signatures, mostly students, and a few from outside.
It caused brief unrest on campus, with another section of students, objecting to the impression that the campaign had the backing of all IISc students. As a result, the letter sent to the President begins with a disclaimer: “The individuals listed here have signed this letter in their personal capacity. Institutional affiliations are listed for purposes of identification, and this letter does not indicate the official positions of these organizations.”
Signatures were collected online and offline in IISc. The letter speaks of academic campuses as “democratic spaces where ideas should be debated, critiqued, and refined”. “Dissent expressed democratically is the only way to generate thoughts that will aid in the progressive journey of our country. A nation where dissent gets brutally suppressed will only take us a hundred years back. What happens in JNU cannot be seen in isolation.,” the letter reads.
Those who have signed, identifying themselves as the academic community, have also demanded “refrain” from the government in its “aggression into JNU and other academic centres.”
