Javed Akhtar had tweeted:"If a hardly literate player or a wrestler troll a pacifist daughter of a martyr it's understandable but what's wrong with some educated folks."
The fallout over Gurmehar Kaur’s placard reached new levels with politicians, cricketers, actors and even wrestlers getting involved. While Hooda and Virender Sehwag joked about her placard, Javed Akhtar took umbrage at their comments. Javed Akhtar hit out her detractors. "If a hardly literate player or a wrestler troll a pacifist daughter of a martyr it's understandable but what's wrong with some educated folks," Akhtar tweeted. Reacting to Javed Akhtar’s dig about being a ‘hardly literate player’ wrester Yogeshwar Dutt said: “You’ve written poems and stories. I’ve also done some small things, like making history for India on an international stage.”
Another person who was highly disappointed was Babita Phogat, who told ANI told ANI: “Desh ke liye acha kar rhi hun,anpadh nhi hu.Padhe likhe log desh ke bare mein aisa bolte hai,wo padhe likhe anpadh hai. (I am doing well for the nation, I am not an illiterate. When educated people say such things about the nation, they are the real illiterates.)
Earlier, her father Mahavir Phogat had written on Twitter, “I spent a lifetime trying to win medals for this country, and they didn’t spare a moment to call me illiterate. There’s no man more knowledgeable than the one who has dedicated his life to the nation. Jai Hind."
Angered by what they say is "stifling of voices," hundreds of university students and teachers took out a protest march aimed at the ABVP as a controversy over free speech in the country gathered pace. Faced with alleged rape threats and a virulent social media backlash, the young woman at the centre of the storm, Gurmehar Kaur, withdrew her protest against the ABVP, the ruling party-affiliated students group, which has been accused of browbeating those who support free speech.
The large-scale participation of Delhi University students, said to be largest in recent times, was remarkable given that the institution is not known for volatile students activism like the Jawaharlal Nehru University, whose students also added their voice at the march besides many eminent academicians and scholars of other colleges.
"The protest is essentially against stifling of voices on campuses across the country including the Delhi University. We want to reclaim the space to discuss and dissent," said All India Students Association leader in DU, Kanwalpreet Kaur. ABVP, which is also backed by the RSS, faced criticism after it was involved in violence at Ramjas college last week. Several students and teachers of the college were beaten, allegedly by ABVP members, for inviting JNU students Umar Khalid and Shela Rashid to a seminar on free speech which was eventually cancelled.
With inputs from agencies
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