The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of the nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had invited chief ministers of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur for a public talk on 28th August. However, the three chief ministers of the BJP ruled states faced protests and sloganeering allegedly by Leftist students.
Former JNU student and columnist Abhinav Prakash shared an image that the chief minister of Assam, Sarbananda Sonowal was the main target of the protestors and ABVP cadre at JNU had to form a human chain around him and escort him inside the venue amidst the threat of violence by the protestors.
https://twitter.com/Abhina_Prakash/status/1034500240525680641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
In a series of tweets, Prakash tweeted how the Leftist goons tried to put forward women protestors to provoke and then physically assault students, just like how it happened during Ramjas violence by leftists in February 2017.
https://twitter.com/Abhina_Prakash/status/1034504239861653504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The students were protesting with placards that read ‘Rollback citizenship amendment bill’ and accused the ABVP of ‘flaunting proximity to power’ by inviting Sarbananda Sonowal, Pema Khandu and N Biren Singh, the chief ministers of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur respectively.
Their visit was part of the campaign for the JNU students’ elections which will be held on 14th September. The ABVP was accused of ‘blatant display of power’ for inviting the chief ministers while the NSUI, Congress’ student wing, had invited P. Chidambaram for a talk on ‘Myth of development under the Modi regime’ on Tuesday and the SFI had invited CPM’s Sitaram Yechury for a talk last week.
The three chief ministers, despite the protests, continued with their talk on national integration and development of the northeast in recent years.
The fact that Congress’ student wing inviting P Chidambaram wasn’t branded as “flaunting proximity to power” and SFI inviting Sitaram Yechury wasn’t branded the same either, shows that the Left doesn’t have a problem with the Chief Minister’s being invited, but a ploy to ensure that an opposing ideology doesn’t find a voice.
It is a proven fact that the ‘government’ and the ‘establishment’ are two separate entities. While BJP has formed the government, one can’t assume that people like Chidambaram or Yechury wield no power. Hence, for the Left to accept that as ‘intellectual discourse’ and to oppose a talk by duly elected chief ministers who might have an ideology that doesn’t sit well with them, shows that the trampling of free speech is an intrinsic part of the Left’s ideology.