Recent events at SAU signal the decline of the University’s International status, thanks to the left groups’ modus operandi, making it a laboratory for their political experimentation. The left-liberals have largely disturbed the academic environment of SAU by indulging in India-centric politics and thus letting non-Indians feel left out as stakeholders of the varsity. This has severely damaged SAU’s reputation as an international university.
The Idea of SAU
The idea of South Asian University (SAU) was given by former prime minister Manhmohan Singh in 2005 SAARC Summit wherein the motive was to pool resources of SAARC members states in establishing a world class institution to produce cutting edge research relevant to the issues of these countries. The university firstly operated from temporary arrangements at JNU and Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri, before getting shifted to permanent campus in 2023 situated at Chhatarpur, South Delhi. The university saw upheavals in the recent past when, for around four years, it did not have a full-time president and registrar at its helm of affairs.
SAU Hijacked by leftists since the start
Similar to other academic institutions in India, the varsity saw capture of its ecosystem by left-liberals. Regular protests often turning into violent scuffles involving students inter se as well as student and administration, the existence and dominance of Left groups like Student Federation of India, deeply disturbed the apolitical character of this university. The matter got escalated in January 2023 when the left students literally confronted professors of SAU using abusive words in running classes, in a protest apropos fellowship deduction for masters’ students. Even police were called inside the campus when the left groups denounced it, claiming this act to be in violation of SAU’s special status as an international organisation enjoying diplomatic immunity.
While the protest was genuine, as there had been a general decline of SAU’s idea and vision of liberal scholarship policy, the way left students undertook the student protests invited severe and brutal response from varsity administration. While some rough students were rightly expelled, the university amended it’s rules and regulation in a way which virtually eliminated the scope for legally permissible further protests, even on genuine issues and till date the students have not been able to come to pre-2023 era.
In post January 2023 era, University’s scholarship policy has been extremely illiberal with no sign of its reversal currently in sight. Interestingly, the administration has been extremely liberal in providing funds for extra-curricular activities like sports in recent past. Be that as it may, on the administrative side, the university’s financial position has been strengthened in past one year which was much needed, at least to run the university in view of continuous failure by many non-Indian governments to give their agreed contribution money. The failure or the closure of the university will not be morally good for India’s stature in the South Asian region and ostensibly, the continued Indian government’s support stems from this mindset of India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
The left-liberal lobby at SAU, through it’s abusive tactics, which include, inter alia, intimidating political opponents with numerous fake sexual harassment cases, indulging in fake news & mischievous propaganda, has given a good excuse to the university administration to put an embargo on student politics crippling students bargaining power at SAU. The university has come to this level due to neglect of the non-violent way of peaceful protests and going on the path of Bolshevikism by self-proclaimed student leaders of SAU. While the majority of the students are apolitical, the left has created its debilitating impact due to its cacophonous and violent modus operandi.
Violent attack on devotee-students and polluting the Satvik Food on Mahashivratri
The recent Mahashivratri occurrence at the South Asian University, Delhi of February 26 has attracted gargantuan media attention as the discussion centred around the Right to Food and the Right to Religious Freedom. However, the mainstream media and News publishing agencies took a very purblind view of the matter and just showed one side of the story, shorn of any truth or factual inquiry. While the reports showed that violence ensued due to the non-vegetarian food kept near the food kept for fasting students of the Hindu community, and the same was perpetrated by the fasting students, the fact as established in recorded videos points otherwise. The Major media houses have cited the Students Federation of India’s virulent statement sans any scrutiny which is a classic case of dereliction of duty on their part regarding responsible media reporting. The reporters guesstimated, hitherto, and have never cared to retrieve or check the video over the issue, which is self-explanatory.
Historically, on special occasions, SAU mess, which is a student-run consisting of a duly elected mess committee having student representatives from each SAARC Member State, provides particular food, as per the dietary predilection of the students. As a case in point, SAU mess regularly ensures that Muslim students fasting throughout the holy month of Ramzan are given food at their convenient time. This practice has been followed at SAU in line with its multi-cultural character. Also, the non-vegetarian foods served in the SAU mess are 100% Halal and the Hindu students, including those aligning with right-wing groups, have never opposed this arrangement, to date. Left-wing student groups existing informally within the campus like Progressive Students Group initially opposed the special food arrangements during Ramazan but owing to the strong opposition of Muslim Students, they had to capitulate as they feared the loss of their support bases.
However, this has not prohibited the left-wing student group from opposing the special food arrangements for fasting Hindu students during festivals like MahaShivratri or Navratri. This prejudiced political strategy has created a reaction from Hindu students in the campus and has united them to speak for their rights. Therefore, before MahaShivratri, around 110 fasting Hindu students requested veg and Satvik food, a demand accepted by the student-run mess without any objection. This fact is established because there was no objection by the mess committee and the special food was prepared for the fasting students.
As SAU has two mess rooms, mess no 2 was demarcated for fasting students that day. It is not uncustomary to segregate veg and non-veg food for the sake of respecting religious sentiments in Indian festivals and merely segregation of these two types of food cannot be called, ipso facto, restriction on right to food of anyone as there had never been objection by anyone to mere making or serving of non-veg food. Nonetheless, despite this special arrangement, a utensil full of fish was deliberately kept by mess workers under orders of the Indian mess committee representative nearly touching the Satvik food which compelled the fasting students to shift the fish to the other side. Indigent of limelight and cognizant of the state of ignorance among the common SAU students and thus straining her nerve to garner public attention, the Indian mess committee student representative, along with her male companion intervened, as a way to show authority and brute power, mala fide, in the matter by violently confronting the fasting students by throwing fish utensils, leading to the splashing of fish over the fasting students. Simultaneously, the male companion to the representative hit a fasting student by fist bringing a free fight and culture of violence to an otherwise peaceful SAU environment.
It is pertinent to note here that the SAU rules does not mandate or give any right to mess committee representatives to indulge in any sort of policing as was done by the Indian representative. In the whole episode, no other mess committee member showed themselves, clearly proving that the current mess committee is virtually dominated by the Indian representative and she has used the committee to further her own personal political vendetta. The poor non-Indian representatives, especially males, have been neutral in the whole issue as they have been unable to assert themselves in fear of getting false sexual harassment cases. The current Indian representative remains mess secretary since her election in August 2024, violating the previous practice by committee of having secretary from each country rotation-wise (usually 2 months).
The best and legal course of action, if at all the concerned representative was really aggrieved, was to report the said action, to the university authorities and most specifically the proctor. Usurping law and order into own hands, show of muscle power and moral policing, cannot be justified in any civilised system based on rules and regulations and the high handedness of the Indian representative and absence of authorisation or support, prior to the event or after that, of her action by six other committee members clearly show her mala fide.
Propaganda to defame SAU
A former professor of SAU, Prof Shashaka Parera, a person of deep academic repute, recently published an opinion piece in ‘The Wire’ containing certain statements which are not only patently false but also defamatory in nature. For instance, he has claimed that university has provided separate place for Hindu temple and does not have any religious place for others! In fact, there is no officially established temple inside the campus and the place which is used by devotees as Puja room is actually boys common room. Similarly, some Muslim students also read Namaz at one particular place in the university. Interested Muslim professors do also perform namaz there with which nobody has posed any objection till date! If existence of a small puja room without any institution support is institutionalisation of Hinduism, one can draw a safe analogy that existence of namaz place inside SAU is nothing but institutionalisation of Islam too.
This argument is nonsensical and unbecoming of Prof Parera’s standing as an academician. The university administration has neither sponsored these places of worships nor opposed these and the pragmatic view of the varsity needs to be appreciated. Since the time of Akbar Bhawan only, separate informal places have existed, owing to community efforts of religious students, for worshipping by Hindus and Muslims. Similarly, it has been claimed that Buddhist, Sikh or Christian etc don’t have a place to worship. It would not only be naive but also pure figment of imagination to say in these circumstances that should there be a desire to do worshipping by them, the university would hinder it. Since there has not been any effort by members of these communities, hitherto, there exist absence of places of worships for them.
SAU, analogous to a secular State, has neither provided nor denied places of worships for common students. Prof Parera’s argument is driven by his deep hate for Hindu religion and if SAU were to buy his viewpoint, it requires having strict yet unnecessary and nonsensical policing by SAU administration to forbid around 90 per cent of SAU students to indulge in any sort of religious activities inside the campus. By conveniently telling half truth, it is ocular that Prof Parera fits into a broader agenda by the left ecosystem to defame and destabilise the varsity.
The entire Mahashivratri incident has been recorded in the video of the incident available with the author. At this time, the representative, in a sly manner, can be seen hitting and simultaneously screaming trying to garner public attention and sympathy. It is well established that the left has always conveniently played the card of fake feminism and victimhood to victimise their political opponent. Even an audio was released involving the said Indian student representative publicly admitting to using false sexual harassment cases as a tool to intimidate and silence her political opponents! The audio publicly available in some SAU WhatsApp groups has exposed the left propaganda. The available audio and video evidence clearly establishes that the said representative is a serial abuser of the ‘women card’ and has thus lost public credibility among SAU students who can clearly distinguish right from wrong. These crucial pieces of evidence have completely been ignored by the irresponsible media persons who sensationalised the issue and imputed the liability of the incident on fasting students without questioning those who are in the power to run the student-run mess. It is nothing but a classical case of threatrical journalism.
There would have been no scuffle had the communists respected the segregation of veg and non-veg food, but they deliberately tried to pollute the veg and Satvik food by undertaking violent steps by pouring non-veg food over fasting students and asserting their brute muscle power and majority inside the campus. It is important to note that in the entire student committee elections, like mess, hostel and culture committees, the students affiliated and supported by groups like SFI and PSG had won the elections, and they enjoyed complete control over the committees. Pragmatically speaking, it is they who should be held accountable for the chaos and not the common students who were merely demanding their fundamental rights to be given to them as they the left groups only hold aloft power inside virtually all committees of the university.
Also, the left aligned students brought the police to the campus and the police came inside the SAU campus in utter violation of The SAU Headquarters Agreement, 2008 & The SAU Act, 2008 which debars police entry or any sort of intervention by the host state without the sanction by the President of the university. This manifests how the left is determined to make SAU a battleground to play Indian politics to make it like any other public university in India. When the confronting students asked the police how could the police come sans any authorisation, then only the police returned after threatening the fasting students with dire consequences even when it did not receive any formal complaint. This was nothing but an instance of using women cards by the left group to use state apparatus and misuse the law to threaten fasting students who were just exercising their right to freely practice religion! The act of calling the police by left students proves that they are hell-bent on undermining the international university disposition of SAU and making it like an Indian university while hypocritically, they blame the SAU administration for running the university like a central university. It was hypocrisy at its best as the act of calling and bringing police was in stark contrast to the stand taken by them when university administration itself had brought police at the campus in 2023.
Since the matter had no merit and cognisant of the fact of frivolous nature of the complaint, the left group never gave a formal complaint of the incident to the police even when they called Police inside campus just for the purpose of intimidation, and got involved in defaming the SAU as the varsity administration of late has come down heavily upon them for indulging in disruptive activities in the campus. Had there been genuineness of the matter, a formal complaint would have been lodged. The entire fiasco shows that left groups are still using campuses in India to gain public sympathy and attention and playing victim card even when they initiate violence.
The abusive exercise of power by left aligned SAU student representatives have given rise to a fear amongst common students that university will further misuse these violent incidents to tighten its grip over these duly elected committees which will in turn greatly curtain powers of these student run committees. It may be noted that mess reform was done by SAU in 2017 and the student-led committees were formed by the varsity administration, after peaceful protests, spanning over a month, by general students. Thus, the food prepared by university contractors was extremely unhealthy and unfit for human consumption and the administration was unable to maintain quality and it is a fact that food quality has greatly improved under the student-run mess system.
Ergo let the cacophony and Brobdingnagian not sequestrate the truth
It is expected, at least, from national dailies that they conduct thorough inquiry before sensationalising any issue and not fall prey to political propaganda when it comes to reporting on-campus events.
The evil designs of Bolshevik students must be inquired into, and those found guilty must be punished for vitiating the peace and tranquillity of the varsity as per relevant rules. The devotees have given formal complaints to the university authorities, but till the time of writing of this article, no action has been taken. The culture of impunity further emboldens the spirit of left-liberals.
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