I had tears in my eyes when I spoke to my brothers and sisters in Delhi, on any campus, studying there, away from home, from their family, and everyone. I felt, for the first time, so upset. I wasn’t able to sleep the whole night, and I wasn’t in Delhi, or even around. What would be the condition of those on the campus?
It’s a tremendous amount of violence that we have been bearing, after independence, just to demand our rights, just for protesting peacefully. If we’re not safe on our campuses, in libraries, or hostels, then where should we go? On to the roads?
On a winter night, if my friends are protesting on the roads, if, for seventy-long days, they’ve been fighting against the high cost of education, what’s wrong with the people in authority who are not listening to them?
If we’ve not understood the Citizenship Amendment Act, please come on media channels and show us the documents that will tell us what it is. But no, you start a ‘missed call’ campaign to show that you have the support and that people in India want it.
Oh! Then who are those leaving their studies and protesting against it? But it’s again a student who is in the wrong, what do they have to do with politics! They should focus on their studies.
Sorry, but which books are you talking about? Those books which teach a student that we are a secular country? Or those books that say we have the right to speak in the country? Those which say that in India, there is the rule of the people, of those people who have been fighting for secularism on road, those who have been demanding their rights for 70 continuous days, and those who’ve been beaten up to death just because they spoke? Or those who come to campuses to abuse us, threaten us and kill us if they feel like it?
Please stop this. When it was Jamia, you said it was to catch called ‘outsiders’. Now, what excuse do you have?
If not supporting or aligning with one ideology is a crime or a punishable offense in the country, I think our democratic republic has turned fascist.
I don’t support or belong to any party, but, if a student or an Indian citizen has been frightened to the extent that at 3 a.m she is writing, about her fear with tears in her eyes, against the government, I feel that’s the biggest failure of the government, and there are thousands of people who are writing and are concerned.
It’s my appeal now, please stop this. We want peace and progress.