JNUSU defaced V D Savarkar Marg signboard inside campus, alleges ABVP

The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Tuesday alleged that the Left-led JNU Students' Union (JNUSU) has defaced the signboard of the road named after V D Savarkar inside the campus. The students' union had objected to a road inside the campus being named after the Hindutva ideologue. It accused the administration of having a different set of priorities at a time when there is a medical emergency in the country.

JNU vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar said they have filed a police complaint regarding the defacement, but the police said they have not yet received it. "The JNU administration last year took the decision to name the roads inside the campus and as a result the road at the Subansir Hostel was named after V D Savarkar, but the Left-wing students defaced it by pasting a Mohammad Ali Jinnah Marg poster," president of ABVP-JNU Shivam Chaurasia alleged.

But former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president N Sai Balaji claimed that the photo of the signboard with Jinnah being circulated by ABVP is 'photoshopped'. "For all the propaganda that is happening about renaming the roads... the images what ABVP ares circulating is fake & photoshopped just like their patron Savarkar's role in freedom struggle of India!," he posted on Twitter.

He said "JNU students renamed it after B R Ambedkar, who gave us Constitution of India which RSS-BJP-ABVP hate". Vice-chancellor Jagadesh Kumar said the incident was "highly regrettable" and they have filed a police complaint regarding the defacement.

"The naming of different roads in JNU campus, which is more than 1000 acres, has been approved by the Executive Council based on the recommendations of the campus development committee in 2016. "During the last two years, several roads have been named after great personalities. But last night some miscreants indulged in defacing the road signage in our campus. This is highly regrettable. In an educational institution, one can disagree intellectually but stooping down to such acts is unwarranted," he said. The JNUSU said while the entire country and the world is fighting a medical emergency and organising its resources for the same, "it is bewildering that the JNU administration has an entirely different set of priorities". "On March 15, the administration found an opportune time to name one of the JNU roads as VD Savarkar Marg. This was done after the Delhi government advisory asked a halt to academic activities prompting students to start leaving home," they said.

The administration knows that Savarkar and his ideology is unacceptable to JNU students, the JNUSU said. "It is unfortunate that such a time was chosen to play divisive politics. "The ABVP has crossed more levels of shamelessness and is trying to malign JNU further by circulating morphed images of the road in the name of Jinnah," it said.

They accused the administration of also trying to use this opportunity to further other "devious" agendas. It is forcing students to travel and increasing risk of coronavirus by creating unfavourable conditions rather than scaling up preparations to fight coronavirus. "At the same time, it is using the absence of students to install CCTVs in residential hostels thereby directly violating a 2017 High Court order which forbade the installation of CCTVs in residential areas on campus," the JNUSU alleged.

The ABVP said they have cleaned the signboard and "reclaimed" the road. The administration on Monday had said that the decision to name the road after Savarkar was taken at the Executive Council held in November last year..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)