TN: Police thwart attempt of Hindu Munnani activists to enter University during Periyar-Islam lecture

Reports said that just as the lecture was about to commence on Wednesday morning around 11 am, members of Hindu Munnani demanded that they be allowed to enter the university. Police deployed outside the main gate prevented them from entering the campus, leading to heated arguments.

Speaking to indianexpress.com, Hindu Munnani State Secretary K Kutralanathan, who led the protest on Wednesday, said they never asked the cops to cancel the lecture but wanted to attend the event to check if the lecture had any objectionable content.

“An announcement was made by the university on behalf of the Sociology department that a lecture on Periyar and Islam would be held with Riyaz Ahmed as the guest speaker. He is the joint editor of Puthiya Vidiyal, a mouthpiece of an organisation that was banned in Jharkhand. We asked the university how they can invite such a person for a lecture, but there was no reply from the authorities. We never demanded that the lecture be cancelled, we just said that we needed to see what the lecture was about but the police did not allow us inside. None of the members of the management came to sort out the issue. What is the need for an educational institution to organize a lecture on issues related to religion? Will they allow me if I organise something similar on Hindu religion?” he said.

Kutralanathan further said that even in the past, the MSU had been the “breeding ground for many anti-national movements”.

“Districts like Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Tenkasi share borders with Kerala. There have been instances of ISIS men being arrested in the region. Therefore, to bring a person from a banned organisation raises questions regarding the motive of such lectures. We have sent an e-mail to the Governor of Tamil Nadu, we hope he will take necessary action,” he added.

Dr S Samuel Asir Raj, the director of the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at the MSU, said, “Normally, I conduct a series of lectures on important issues. This time, the theme was ‘Social Justice and Enlightenment’. My aim was to conduct a seven-part lecture on ‘Periyar and Social Justice’. The inaugural lecture was conducted in October. Poet Arul Nithi spoke on ‘Periyar and Women’ that day. The second lecture of the series was on ‘Periyar and Islam’. We gave the invite only to departments inside the university but somehow a picture of the invite was taken and it was shared with outsiders as well. Hindu Munnani members are claiming that the speaker of the event belongs to some banned organisation but as far as I know, that organisation is not banned in Tamil Nadu. Basically, these members don’t want colleges and universities to discuss Periyar,” he said.

Samuel further said that he was asked by the management to drop the event fearing an untoward incident.

He said the vice-chancellor told him that he cannot provide a hall to conduct the event as he had reports that Hindu Munnani members were planning to stop the lecture.

“Last Saturday, I received a call from the registrar stating that I should cancel my event. I told them that we are looking at how Periyar viewed the Muslims in the Tamil community. I also told him that we have the academic freedom to discuss Ambedkar, Periyar here. But the registrar said the vice-chancellor had instructed them to drop the event. I said I will not drop my event nor change my guest or topic. Then I was told I won’t be given a hall to conduct the event. I told them that the duty of a university is to protect its faculty and we cannot bow down to such threats,” Samuel added.

Samuel claimed that they were told to wrap up the event within an hour as other members of the university found it difficult to enter and exit the university with the deployment of police and protests taking place at the entrance. “I am planning to go ahead with my next lecture in November, it will be on ‘Periyar and Reservation’. I would have been happier if the members of Hindu Munnani were allowed inside on Wednesday and we could have had a debate in a healthy manner. I believe in freedom of expression. University is such a place where people of different ideologies come together and debate what is right and wrong,” he said.

Earlier in November 2020, the university removed ‘Walking with Comrades’, a decade-old work of Booker Prize Winner Arundhati Roy, from the syllabus following a complaint from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

Indianexpress.com tried to contact MSU registrar but the calls went unanswered.