The proposed of JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya to the Aligarh Muslim University on April 2 was cancelled on Tuesday after protests by Hindutva groups and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students wing of BJP.
Mr. Kumar was supposed to attend a convention on nationalism which was organised by AISA, the student wing of CPI (ML). But the right-wing groups had allegedly threatened to prevent Mr. Kumar from entering Aligarh.
According to sources in the campus, the university administration had conveyed to the organisers that it wanted to avoid the "possible controversy as the right wing groups had been trying to create controversies with regard to the university and target it over baseless and completely false accusations".
"For now the convention on nationalism for which we had invited Comerade Kanhaiya, has been cancelled because we saw that ABVP and other Hindutva affiliated students groups had started targeting AMU on the pretext of his visit. Interestingly, we had not even fully made the plans for this event public but mere proposal for such an event gave rightwing groups an opportunity to make unconstitutional vigilantism," Mahfooz Alam, the convenor of AISA unit of AMU told The Hindu .
"Kanhaiya is a citizen of this country and can visit anyplace he wants. Who is ABVP or any other group to distribute certificate of nationalism to others in the country? This extra constitutional censorship by Hindutva groups, is an extremely dangerous trend," he added.
Mr. Alam said that the idea of "nationalism vs nationalism" was a false binary propped up by the BJP "only to deflect attention of people from the failures of the Narendra Modi government."
He reiterated that AISA will organise the convention "later in future for which Mr. Kumar will be invited."
The cancellation of event comes weeks after BJP Member of Parliament from Aligarh, Satish Gautam had written to the AMU Vice Chancellor Lt. Gen. (retd.) Zameer Uddin Shah "not to allow any event which may go against BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Narendra Modi government."
University officials told The Hindu that no student had approached them for permission as yet.
Nikhil Maheshwari, of ABVP told the media that his organisation will not allow Mr. Kumar to enter the city. "We are opposed to any event where Kanhaiya is invited," he said.
Vishwa Vidyalaya Chhatra Sangh Morcha, the students group which had threatened to bar Mr. Kumar's entry in Aligarh told The Hindu that it won't allow any event where the JNUSU president is a speaker.
"It is an insult to Aligarh if an anti-national like Kanhaiya visits the city. We will ensure that he doesn't get entry in this city," Amit Goswami, the general secretary of the student outfit told The Hindu. Another Hindutva outfit Hindu Jagaran Manch had organised a press conference in Aligarh on Monday to express its opposition to the AISA convention on nationalism where Mr. Kumar was a speaker.
