Sensationalism by media going too far

It is most unfortunate that there is so much ado about a 20year-old Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur’s statement in the social media criticising the activities of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the youth wing of the BJP. As has become normal practice, the media has gone berserk in sensationalising the young girl’s remarks. So disgusted and exasperated is Gurmehar with the media campaign ostensibly in support of her that she has now declared that she is pulling out of the protest march planned by students against the violence unleashed by rival student groups on the Delhi University campus last week and heading for home to Punjab. Gurmehar is the daughter of a martyr who died young in the Kargil war in 1999 and bears the scars of her father’s martyrdom when she was just two years old. She is so depressed with the media blow-up of her tweet that she is now pleading to be left alone.

Apart from some BJP and Sangh Parivar activists who have made it their business to contest her statement, politicians from the Left parties have jumped into the fray through the All India Students’ Association (AISA), the youth wing of the CPI-ML which has been having an ongoing battle with the ABVP. Also jumping in to try and make political capital are Congressmen led by Rahul Gandhi who revels in queering every pitch, and Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party. Rahul had last year added fuel to fire by his provocative statements on an agitation supporting the executed terrorist Afzal Guru which led to a sedition case against some students. Some teachers too love to fish in troubled waters and catalyse the politicisation process. All this has made the whole thing look murky. The whole debate on the ‘intolerance’ of the saffron brigade that had surfaced on the eve of the Bihar Assembly elections two years ago has been revived with little justification. It is time the saner elements step in to defuse the situation and restore normalcy in the Delhi University campus. It is indeed worth examining whether it is time to outlaw the entry of political parties into our campuses because all that they do is vitiate the atmosphere and spread disaffection.