Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is once again embroiled in controversy.

On January 5, the JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) organised a candlelight march on the lawns of the university’s Sabarmati Hostel. During this march, students allegedly raised objectionable slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

A video of students raising these slogans soon went viral on social media – with many comparing them to the ‘anti-national’ slogans raised on campus in 2016, which took on a serious political dimension.

Students involved in this recent candlelight march say that this event is held every year on the anniversary of the violent attack that took place on campus on January 5, 2020. According to them, several students were injured that day, but since then, no arrests were made, and no concrete action was taken.

Speaking to Newslaundry, Akshan Ranjan, a PhD student and a student leader, said, “Every year on January 5, we commemorate the 2020 incident. On that day, masked outsiders attacked students with sticks and rods at JNU. It was merely a coincidence that on the same day, the Supreme Court rejected the bail applications of Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid. The media wrongly portrayed the march as a protest following the court’s decision, which it was not. We have been holding this candlelight march every year since 2020.”

Following the recent candlelight march, the JNU administration has written to the Delhi Police demanding that an FIR be registered against the students allegedly involved in sloganeering.

Many of the students Newslaundry spoke to expressed their displeasure with the ‘media trial’ their university is being subjected to based on “incomplete and misleading information”.

A couple of days after the candlelight march, students associated with the ABVP, the student wing of the RSS, held a demonstration on January 7 at around 9 PM on the lawn of the Sabarmati Hostel. They burned an effigy of an “anti-national element” and chanted slogans.

Watch. 

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