ABVP has portrayed Hyderabad campus politics as nationalist vs naxals

NEW DELHI: Hyderabad’s student politics may have hit national headlines now but for the ABVP, the RSS’ students wing, the city and its two campuses — Hyderabad Central University and Osmania — have been conquerable citadels due to the deep-seated ideological divide between the ultra-Left, Left and the Right. “The contest has mainly between the nationalist movement (ABVP) and Leftists,” BJP state chief G Kishan Reddy told ET.

Old timers take the story back to around the Naxalbari movement in the early 70s. The cycle of agitation and counter-agitation took a violent turn when ABVP’s Indrasena Reddy was stabbed on the Osmania campus by Naxalites. This acted as a galvanising moment for the ABVP, turning Reddy into a student icon for the right-wing politics. He later became a BJP legislator and head of the BJP state unit.

ABVP leaders feel violence against ‘nationalist’ ABVP activists have never ceased and claims over 40 ABVP activists were killed since the early 80s.

That provided fertile ground for politicians like Bandaru Dattatreya and Muraldhar Rao, currently BJP general secretary. The support went beyond Hyderabad to the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, where M Venkaiah Naidu cut his teeth as an ABVP activist. The deep roots of Left was reflected in BT Ranadive’s Telangana struggle of post-Independence and fears of spread of ‘evangelism’ motivated the Sangh Parivar to push ABVP as a force to the strong Left-controlled campuses in the state.

“Bodies like the Ambedkar Students Association (to which Rohith Vemula belonged) are basically Leftist forces. They are not similar Ambedkarites in neighbouring Maharashtra,” Sunil Ambekar, RSS pracharak and the national organising secretary of RSS, told ET. “Leftists have been floating castebased organisations in both the universities. ABVP has been fighting against the leftist movement,” G Kishan Reddy claimed.