The Communist academicians are targeting independent academic institutions and nationalists while giving a covering fire to protect their anti-national companions who face criminal charges
Organiser Bureau
It was a war of ideas which escalated into a personal vendetta that has triggered a cacophony targeting the country’s prestigious public funded journalism institute for all insignificant matters. Perhaps, yet another example of media sensationalism. Recently Indian Institute of Mass communication (IIMC) Delhi was embroiled into the controversy over extending its support by letting out its premises to a media organisation named, Media Scan, a weekly newspaper for conducting a seminar including a lecture on ‘Nationalistic Journalism in Current Scenario: Media and Myth’ on May 20.
The institute has been bogged down for all imprecise reasons. However, Director General of IIMC KG Suresh, who was also scheduled to speak at the event, clarified that institute has not organised any event nor the yagna.
Speaking to Organiser, KG Suresh said, “It is a vast political agenda by some people who have a record of holding grudges against the institute and the government. A complete false story has been baked to defame the name of the institute. As I have kept saying, the event was not organised by IIMC. Its role is limited to offering their auditorium, that is why the invitation card shows the institute’s logo.”
Clarifying the protest as a political motive of supporters of Marxist sentiments and discounting the allegation levelled against the Institute for imposing saffronisation and Hindutva ideology, K G Suresh retorted, “IIMC is a national property. Whenever any media organisation approaches us, we give people our venue free of cost for hosting events. Academic vacations are going on, nobody was there on the campus. On whom have we imposed saffronisation and Hindutva ideology? On trees, on plants or on walls? We have accommodated all the religions.”
Replying to the invitation extended to former Bastar Inspector-General S R P Kalluri, Suresh said, “Why should I stop him? He is coming to an event that will see the presence of media persons and they will question him. I have not invited anybody from my side. Then why are these people protesting and polarising the entire event?”
‘I have received a mail by a group of some five students including one who was suspended for violating the law of Institute. In a written note they have threatened me for letting out the premises to the organisers. I can produce it in any court if need be. Only handful of five students from IIMC were protesting outside the campus. Rest others were JNU scholars including JNUSU president Mohit Pandey. All of them were shouting ‘Lal salam lal salam’ outside the campus. This shows their double standards and hypocrisy. They are unanimously defaming the Institute’s name and targeting the government. Not a single minority student came to me protesting. Rather they supported us ’, said Suresh.
In response to an article published in Outlook a few days back which was penned down by the former associate professor of IIMC Amit Sen Gupta, K G Suresh said, “It is shameful that an esteemed media organisation like Outlook has published such a derogatory and defamatory article on an individual without seeking his piece of advice on the matter. It is a big disgrace. They all have a grudge against the administration and they try to score points. These people are going around sending things to media houses and circulating stuff on
social media.’
In recent months in March 2016, when Amit Sen Gupta resigned from the institute when he was transferred to the institute’s Odisha campus, he had alleged that his transfer was the result of the government interference. He reportedly blamed the government by communicating false statements, said Suresh while taking a dig at Sen Gupta.
Umesh Chaturvedi, a senior journalist and one of the organisers of the seminar said, “In the event organised we have welcomed people who strongly support the leftist ideology. Senior journalists and IIMC alumni Shushil Jha, Abhijeet Srivastava and Vishwa Deepak among others were present there. They put some questions to Kalluri and were given answers too. There is no point in saying the event was meant to impose Hindutva ideology and was organised for people who believe in it. It was for all who took interest by registering themselves online.”
Purportedly, such uncalled for controversies are intended to divert the public attention from the debate which has been erupted after a shocking revelation made by a Naxalite Podium Pandu alias Panda, one of the Maoist masterminds in the insurgency-hit Sukhma district of Chhattisgarh. Panda is a member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), a communist terrorist outfit.
At a press conference held in Raipur, Panda confessed that he was the major link between the Maoist top wigs and the urban Naxalites. He also disclosed two major names from the network of urban sympathisers and activists, Delhi University professor Nandini Sunder and a social rights activist Bella Bhatia. He confessed that both of them are having a link with the top Maoist leaders and revealed their involvement in funding and channelising the Naxalite movement in India.
Panda is alleged to have worked as a middleman and a courier for Nandini Sunder and Bella Bhatia and had arranged meetings for them with the top Naxalite leaders like Ramana and Hidma many times in the outskirt areas of insurgency-hit Sukhma region.
Interestingly, the Communist academicians who raise the bogey of ‘Saffronisation’ are giving a covering fire to protect their fellow anti-national colleagues who face legal charge in the light of Pande’s new revelations. Earlier in November 2016 when Prof Nandini Sunder was arrested on the charge of the murder case of Shamnath Baghel, a tribal leader who was heading the protest against the Maoists in their village. She was also charged with rioting and inciting violence in the Sukhma district of the state. It was the then Inspector General of Police of Bastar cadre S R P Kalluri, who was the main speaker at the seminar on IIMC Delhi campus, who had made an allegation against her of threatening the villagers for opposing the Naxalites in the region. The Supreme Court of India had declared the writ petition filed by Prof Nandini Sunder as illegitimate and unlawful.
Commenting on the issue, noted lawyer and columnist, Pamarty Venkataramana said that IIMC is the lone voice of sanity on the national
firmament of mass media. Meanwhile, the Group of Intellectuals and Academicians (GIA) has approached the Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University and Home Minister seeking immediate action against the accused urban Maoists who misused the academic platforms in Delhi University.
