Indore: A video has gone viral in which a college professor at Rajiv Gandhi Government Post-Graduate Degree College, Mandsaur is seen touching the feet of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) men, in a bid to embarrass them for labelling him ‘anti-national’. The video shows an agitated Dinesh Gupta, running around to touch the feet of the ABVP men. “Main padhane ke liye maafi maangta hu (I apologise for teaching),” says the professor, touching the ABVP men’s feet. Since the incident, Gupta has gone on a three-day official leave.
According to Indian Express, ABVP activists were protesting the delay in announcing fourth semester results of BSc exams. Gupta asked the protesters to stop sloganeering since it was disturbing his class. Alleging that Gupta asked them to stop shouting Bharat Mata ki Jai and Vande Mataram, ABVP has accused the professor of being anti-national.
The ABVP, which is the students’ wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has a history of triggering conflict by attacking professors and taking control of university spaces. In 2006, Professor Harbhajan Singh Sabharwal from Ujjain was attacked and murdered allegedly by a group of ABVP members, who were eventually acquitted of all charges. Sabharwal had attempted to postpone the student union elections.
According to sections of academics, such conflicts have been on the rise after the Modi government came to power in 2014. Though Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University has been at the centre of the row, clashes between the ABVP and opposing student groups have spread to other campuses like Hyderabad Central University, Pondicherry University, Allahabad University, Benaras Hindu University and Patna University among other campuses across the country.
Mention may be made in this context of the 2014 incident of violence that took place on the Ramjas College campus. Taking umbrage at the presence of then JNU PhD student Umar Khalid at a literary seminar, ABVP students attacked Left-leaning students and professors, derailing the event.