The students of IIT-Roorkee organized a protest against the violent actions of police in DU, Jamia Millia and AMU in front of the Students Club, IIT-Roorkee at 6:30 pm on 17-12-2019.
However, the protest was organized under a lot of threats and intimidating atmosphere. We were not opposed by a great majority of students here. It’s only a handful of extremist guys here who oppose every event which is not conducted under their instructions. Events and ideas opposed to their ideology are impossible to be conducted. They disobey everyone, even the director. They are informed about each and every event by some people in the administration as if they are the real authorities and people who manage IIT-Roorkee. It’s no exaggeration to say that only a handful of people run the whole institute at the ground level. It’s a sad reality of one of the imminent and oldest institute of the nation.
In this particular incident when a group students from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, cutting across religious and every other possible difference went straight to the administration(DOSW) for permission to conduct a silent and peaceful protest to express solidarity with students who were victimized by police in Delhi. They refused categorically, saying “this is a political issue”. In fact, later a yet another larger and more diverse group asked for permission. This time students were asked to get 100 signatures and give in writing that no violence will happen. This is even after we ourselves requested for a place and timing of IIT administration’s choosing and that IIT security staff will accompany our protest. Since, the students persisted, pleaded and questioned such anti-student attitude, the DOSW changed their stance and said that they are approving our event once we give something in written. We wrote a letter in this regard and asked permission to be formally given. We were told the administration was processing our request.
Relieved we started waiting for the official approval letter. To our surprise, the same extremist bigot gang barged into the office openly threatening us! They were open, brazen and categorically denying any protest or candle light march we wanted to be conducted. These students promised violence. We waited for 90 minutes in such atmosphere. The letter was nowhere in sight. In the end when we persisted, these guys agreed for our protest to be formally executed only if;
There will not be a March.
No mention of Government or Police or any University. Specifically, DU, Jamia , or AMU
No slogans.
No mention of CAA or NRC
The administration was happy to be on their side and allowed them to conduct a separate protest after allowing them to “monitor” ours. The only thing administration asked them to comply with was no placards that display any message related to NRC/CAA or Jamia/DU/AMU.
We agreed since we did not want to be identified as having something of a hidden agenda.
Permission was granted.
Our protest was completely peaceful. All sections of the IIT society: Faculty, students, men and women from all faiths, regions attended it. A lot of security was around us and even some people in plain clothes. The bigots and extremist gang was outside the students club, “monitoring” and jeering.
We did our protest and left.