Reminiscing his days as JNU student’s union president Amit Sengupta, who had recently resigned from IIMC citing differences with the administration, said “JNU students have never been and never will be violent’.
“We have argument, they have sexism, we have arguments they have xenophobia, we have argument, they have violence. We were non-violent when our student leader Chandu was killed in Bihar in the year 1997, we were non-violent when the government tried to shut the university in 1983 and we are non-violent today when our student’s union President Kanhaiya Kumar has been attacked,” Sengupta said while addressing the students at JNU.
“This is the tradition of JNU, we fight with ideas not with violence,” he added.
Recalling his days in the university, he told students about the movement that students carried out during 1983 when there was an attempt to shut down the university.
“In the year 1983 there was police action in JNU. The VC was under gherao, students went to jail, we were beaten up, lathi-chaged, but we did not retaliate. We only kept fighting our ideas. It is a similar situation today, all kinds of negative things are being spread about the university,” he said.
“After the campus was reopened, search lights came, public meeting in girls hostels were stopped. We changed all that and by the year 1989, we had reclaimed our campus back,” he added.
Sengupta also spoke about the student’s movement that started after former JNUSU president Chandrashekhar’s (Chandu) death in the year 1997. Chandu was killed in his hometown in Siwan in Bihar by some goons who were close to the political leaders there.
“We demanded justice for our student’s union president and fought for over a month. That time the emotion of the entire country was with us. The media was with us, the public was with us, because they knew that what has happened is wrong,” he said.
“JNU has a great tradition, they have a propaganda. We should continue with our movement,” he added.
Sengupta had last week resigned from Indian Institute of Mass Communication alleging he was being targeted for his support to the students movement at JNU, FTII and Hyderabad Central University.
PTI