The elite special protection group (SPG) cover provided to her for security escorted her to safety.
Students’ organisation says a book compiled by Upinder Singh denigrates Ramayana
NEW DELHI: Being the prime minister’s daughter comes with its own responsibilities and drawbacks. Manmohan Singh’s daughter Upinder Singh received a first-hand experience on this when activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP, ran riot in the Delhi university campus on Monday, over a book that they claimed was compiled by her. The elite special protection group (SPG) cover provided to her for security escorted her to safety.
The ABVP activists and members of other right wing outfits trooped to the campus when she was taking a lecture of ancient history. They barged into the history department to register their protest against the inclusion of an essay by late AK Ramanujan titled, Three Hundred Ramayanas - Five Examples And Three Thoughts On Translation, in the second year BA (Hons) course. The activists claimed that “the essay, a part of a book on ancient history, compiled by Upinder Singh, has exploited the intellectual freedom to denigrate the Ramayana and create serious doubts about the existence of Ram. Doubts have been deliberately created about the characters of Sita and Laxman.”
The activists smashed windowpanes of the arts complex and also allegedly roughed up S Zaheer Jafri, head of the department (history). Singh who was taking her lecture was immediately escorted to her car by the SPG. The agitation soon turned into a clash between the right wing activists and students of the history department.
On Tuesday, while the university campus was manned by heavy security, students of the history department boycotted classes in all 70 DU colleges and organised a peace march in the university’s north campus. Jafri said, “Claims made by the activists about the book being compiled by Upinder Singh are unfounded.
There is no published compilation of the book readings by her or any other member of the history department. However, it has come to our notice that there is a spiral bound collection of photocopies of individual articles related to the course available at some shops.” A case has been registered against ABVP activists on charges of rioting, destruction of public property and obstructing public servants from performing duties, a senior police official said.
y_puneet@dnaindia.net
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