Has the closure of all avenues to express their resentment leading to unrest on the Osmania University campus, and has it finally contributed to the postponement of Indian Science Congress?
Senior academics on the campus feel that with all other avenues in the city closed for rallies and meetings to express their view point, students find OU a safe place. And it is the place where they give vent to their anger against the government.
Interestingly, the Indian Science Congress has been postponed citing student unrest as one of the main reasons.
“Where else they will let out their pent up feelings other than the campus as it is relatively safe and police crackdown is less,” says former Dean of Osmania University Arts College P.L. Vishweshwer Rao.
“Closure of dharna chowk and unwritten ban on all rallies in the city has also led to this situation.”
Democratic process
The government has to accept that there are bound to be questions and they cannot be suppressed. Availability of such outlets like Dharna Chowk or protests at Secretariat or Chief Minister’s Camp Office wouldn’t have led to such pent up feelings and OU would have been much easier to manage now is the argument of some senior professors.
“Society is going through a conflict and it would reflect anywhere and more so in Telangana where there is repression. Just because there would be protests such science events can’t be cancelled. It is a national science event and not a State government event to be handled in such a manner,” Professor Rao says.
No boycott call
When the State government could conduct Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GEC) or the World Telugu Conference peacefully why couldn’t it have conducted the Indian Science Congress with similar security strategies, asks Battu Satyanarayana, president OU Teachers Association (OUTA).
Moreover, students had not given any threats for the boycott of the sessions. In fact, the ABVP had opposed even the proposal to shift the inaugural to a city hotel saying it was a question of the University’s prestige.
“No student organisation has given a boycott call. In fact, we want the sessions to be conducted given the university’s image attached to such events and more so in the Centenary Year,” says Manavata Roy, a research scholar.
