Republic Day brings temporary calm to University of Hyderabad

HYDERABAD | BENGALURU: The University of Hyderabad on Tuesday witnessed peace, albeit for a brief moment, with the agitating students allowing acting vice-chancellor Vipin Srivastava to hoist the national flag at the campus for Republic Day. They, however, did not actively participate in the event.

Professor Srivastava, who was allowed to step into the campus for the first time since the agitation over the death of PhD student Rohith Vemula began on January 17, told ET: "There was no disturbance. The police were there at a distance and nobody stopped me from hoisting the flag." He hoped that this would be a precursor to finding a solution to the logjam, with the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the students not allowing any activity other than the protest.

The agitating students have been accused of anti-national activity by right wing groups and have also not accepted the appointment of Professor Srivastava as acting VC. "However, we did not want to make Republic Day an issue, so we allowed the hoisting to happen," Arpita Jaya, a member of the JAC told ET.

Making it clear that the agitation was not petering out in any way, the JAC screened the documentary "Muzaffarnagar baaqi hai" — which was banned from screening at a college under the Delhi University in August — in the presence of its maker Nikhil Singh Sahwaney. "Our protest over the ban led to the clash between us (Ambedkar Students Association) and the ABVP in August. This was followed by a series of things that led to Rohith’s death. We have screened it earlier, but now we are screening it for all the students from other universities who are here to express solidarity with us," another member of the JAC and ASA, Prashant Bagde, explained.

Representatives of nine universities including JNU and DU are currently on the campus and they have formed a national JAC to press for action on Vemula’s suicide. They have called for a national universities bandh on Wednesday, which is to be escalated to a Delhi Chalo on January 30, Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary and Vemula’s birthday.

Their demands include sacking of HRD minister Smriti Irani, arrest of labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya and VC Apparao Podile.