Kerala Central University students replicate Harvard walkout scenario at T G Mohandas lecture

Around two weeks ago, during a lecture at Harvard Law School by Dani Dayan, the Consul General of Israel to New York, on the ‘legal strategy for Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine’, students collectively stood up, simply held placards – one of which read ‘Settlements are a war crime’ and started walking out of the lecture hall.  A viral video showed a large number of students walking out of a talk by an Israeli envoy.

The session by Mohandas was on ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic’, Senkumar was the resource person for a session on ‘the Constitution correcting inequality’ and Suresh Babu’s session was on the Fourth Estate.

A similar incident took place in Kerala, Kasaragod district at the lecture hall in the Central University of Kerala.  As part of the 70^th Constitution Day celebrations, when a guest speaker started speaking, students started to rise from their chairs one by one and raised placards in the air for some time, protesting the University’s invites to many BJP sympathizers. Even as the guest continued his speech, the students walked out of the hall.

PGurus spoke with the speaker, T G Mohandas, and he had the following to say:
“Students from some Islamic groups and the ASU Campus Students Union members surrounded my car and were thumping on the bonnet and the windows, shouting RSS fascist, go back! There was a skeleton police force, which told me to stay inside the car. The Police called up reinforcements, which arrived about a half an hour later. I was escorted into the hall at that time. When I started speaking a bunch of students holding placards stood up and marched out of the room. By this time, the crowd had swelled to see what the commotion was all about and even after the students left, the hall was jampacked.”

The university organized seven sessions as part of the two-day national conference on ‘Constitution and Democracy 70 years of Indian experience’. Out of the seven scheduled sessions, students protested to three sessions, by BJP Intellectual Cell convener TG Mohandas, former DGP TP Senkumar and BJP mouthpiece Janam TV’s Chief Editor GK Suresh Babu.

The session by Mohandas was on ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic’, Senkumar was the resource person for a session on ‘the Constitution correcting inequality’ and Suresh Babu’s session was on the Fourth Estate.

The Student alleged that guests who had been invited neither had the academic background nor credentials to speak on the topics of the respective seminars. They also, said that invitees are propagandists of communal agendas working against the constitution. The Central University Student Union which includes the Student Federation of India (SFI), Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) and other student organizations.

During the talk by T G Mohandas students staged the silent protest. Even as the students walked out, Mohandas could be heard saying, “The people who talk too much about freedom, are against freedom. That is the bane in Kerala… If someone doesn’t like someone, you don’t need to listen to him, but not allowing him to speak is unconstitutional.”

SFI Union was inspired by Harvard University

Sachin Gopu, SFI unit Secretary of the University, said to TNM that the students’ union was inspired by the walkout by the Harvard University students.

“Our protest is against the administration’s decision to invite people with no relevant credentials to talk about our Constitution. The students decided to protest against this in a democratic manner, without insulting our guests yet registering our protest,” said Sachin, adding, “We are not against having any discussion on the Constitution in the campus or against any of the guests.”

However, the district leaders of SFI and National Students’ Union of India’s (NSUI) intervention to try and stop the session by Mohandas made the Ambedkar Students’ Association unhappy. Disappointment over the incidents “where people from outside entered the campus and tried to hijack our democratic protest” was expressed by the union in a statement.

“The action of not allowing one to talk or to enter into the campus doesn’t exactly comply with the constitutional spirit. It’s time that we realize that fascism cannot be fought with fascism. ASA CU Kerala requests all the other student organisations to stick on to a democratic and internal method of protest and activism,” read the statement by ASA. The ASA also thanked the students’ associations for extending support to the silent protest.

The district leaders of SFI and the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) tried to intervene and stop the seminar by Mohandas, according to Sachin. He added that “They reached the campus without our (campus SFI wing) knowledge. They carried out of the protest individually and we are not associated with them in this.”

In the first session of the conference, which was by Mohandas, the students’ union staged the silent protest. Sachin said that “We were against the session by Senkumar and Suresh Babu. However, our examinations are going on and considering the availability of all students, we protested at Mohandas’ session.”