Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) workers staged an impressive march to the residence of the Vice Chancellor (VC) to protest against the blocking of the Governor-nominated Senate members by Students Federation of India (SFI) goons when they went to the Varsity gate to attend the senate meeting on December 21, 2023.
SFI men did not allow 9 out of 18 Senate members nominated by Governor Dr Arif Mohammad Khan. SFI men allowed the members belonging to Congress and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the constituents of the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF), to go in.
Balan Pootheri, Padmasree laureate and blind author of 214 books, was one of the 9 Senate members who could not make it, thanks to the hooliganism of SFI and Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM).
The Senate members had called the Vice Chancellor and the police, but none came to their rescue. On the other hand, the Vice Chancellor conducted the meeting, passed five agenda items in twenty minutes, and dissolved the meeting.
ABVP workers, including several girls, who entered the premises of the Vice Chancellor’s residence were arrested and removed. ABVP had alleged that the Vice Chancellor, Pro-Vice Chancellor and police are hand-in-glove. They alleged that because of this unholy alliance, SFI men blocked the Senate members from entering the campus to attend the Senate meeting. SFI people had shouted that they would not permit ‘Sangh Parivar’ Senate members to enter the campus. They threatened that they knew the residential addresses of all members and warned them of dire consequences if they tried to enter the campus.
Police remained silent spectators during the whole episode. They did the same when SFI unleashed anarchy in the campus when the Governor was there on December 16 and 17 to inaugurate a seminar on the campus on “The Contributions of Sree Narayana Gurudev, Chattambi Swamiji & Shubhananda Gurudev towards the Renaissance of Kerala”, the programme organised, under the joint auspices of Sanatana Dharma Peetam and Bharatiya Vichara Kendram, the Kerala chapter of Prajna Pravah. We had reported how the Governor defied it and his impromptu visit to the busy Mittayi Theruvu (sweet street) in Kozhikode City. They all happened despite the SFI declaration that they would not allow the Governor to touch the soil of any University in the State of Kerala. Their complaint against the Governor was his bold action of nominating Sangh-inspired personalities to the senators of various Universities in the State. CPM and its allied parties, SFI and DYFI, took a stand that they would not ‘tolerate it’ because it was the first time a Governor had taken such a strong stand in the State.
It shattered the dreams of SFI to establish that they are not the Governor or Chancellor or Pro-Vice-Chancellor or Principals, the real bosses of the higher education sector in the State.
Then, they looked for crooked revenge on the Governor and found that blocking the Governor-nominated Senate members at the gate was the only method against Dr Arif Mohammad Khan.
Meanwhile, the Kerala High Court had granted police protection to the Senate members whom SFI men blocked on December 21 when they went to the University to attend the Senate meeting. It is in response to the petition filed by the victims, Padmasree laureate Balan Pootheri and others. It is reported that SFI men have been notified through special emissaries. The petitioners complained that SFI men had threatened them that they would even attack them at their houses.
The ABVP action and the petition filed by the Senate members denote that they are not going to surrender before the fascist CPM forces.
