India: On FIR Against Student Activists for Wall Paintings on G.N. Saibaba
We hereby share a statement we have received by the Bhagat Singh Chatra Ekta Manch (bsCEM).
On 10th November, DU student activists of Bhagat Singh Chatra Ekta Manch (bsCEM) had done wall paintings across the North Campus for the late professor G.N. Saibaba. Professor Saibaba was an english professor in Delhi University who dedicated decades of his life engaged in various peoples resistance movements across the country, campaigning for the democratic rights of the oppressed and exploited masses of India, especially the Dalits, Adivasis, oppressed nationalities and minorities who form the working sections of our country. He raised a widespread campaign against Operation Green Hunt, a genocidal operation by the Comprador Bureaucratic Indian State which targeted to eliminate all popular resistance by the masses against the imperialist mining operations in Central India. Even when late professor G. N. Saibaba had been acquitted by the supreme court after the inhumane decade long incarceration under the UAPA, the Indian state wants to criminalise students for popularising the cause he struggled for. This wall painting was done in support of the memorial meeting held on 10th November, 2024, to commemorate our professor G. N. Saibaba which was also attended by authors like Arundhati Roy, lawyers such as Prashant Bhusan, professor Nandini Sundar, Hem Mishra, and many more.
To popularise this steadfast torchbearer of the struggle for democratic rights of the oppressed masses among the democratic and progressive students of Delhi University, bsCEM carried out a Wall Painting to commemorate our revolutionary professor who worked in the same university. For this act, FIR has been lodged against the activists of bsCEM. The students have been charged with defamation of public property and called for an illegal investigation. With the strengthening of Brahminical Hindutva Fascist forces in India, where only the Hindutva ideology is promoted across colleges, universities and all public forums, this comes as another attack on students resisting the fascist onslaught on democratic spaces.
As the crisis of imperialism is intensifying, the Comprador Bureaucratic Indian State and its imperialist masters are strengthening the Brahminical Hindutva Fascist forces. Any resistance by the people against the imperialist loot of the country is brutally attacked and anyone trying to raise the consciousness of the masses for the democratisation of the society, are repressed, red-tagged as ‘Urban Naxals’ and repeatedly harassed, imprisoned and even murdered. The Moolvasi Bachao Manch of Bastar, which led a democratic movement across thirty different protest sites against the militarisation in Bastar and the setting up of paramilitary and military camps by encroaching of Adivasi lands, was banned on the vague allegation of being ‘anti-development’ and ‘maoist influenced’. Reporters, Advocates, Professors and Intellectuals who attempt to raise the democratic demands of the masses are also labelled as ‘Anti-National’, ‘Urban Naxal’, etc and then incarcerated without proper trial or treatment for years under UAPA. JNU student Umar Khalid, DU professor Hany Babu, and many such public intellectuals who talked about the working masses have also been incarcerated for years on end. In educational institutions such as Delhi University where Shakhas of RSS are conducted every morning in campuses, their secular and democratic functioning is torn off to promote Brahminical Hindutva Fascist ideology through NEP courses and rigged assignment of professors. Clearly, the attack on student activists is another step by the fascist Indian State to erase all democratic space of discussion and debate that does not suit its agenda.
