DU invites senior RSS leader to deliver lecture

The portent of a possible change of guard at the Centre is leading to many a change of hearts on the Delhi University campus. The Delhi University administration on Tuesday invited top office-bearer of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) Krishna Gopal to the campus to deliver a lecture on ‘Education in India: Mission and Vision’. 

Incidentally the invitation to Gopal comes days after activists of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of RSS, vandalized the office of a top university functionary  to protest against the ‘imposition’ four-year under graduate programme (FYUP).

Dr Krishna Gopal was invited by the department of adult education and he delivered the lecture at the Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILLL) on the campus. He shared the dais with director south campus Prof Umesh Rai as the backdrop of the stage prominently claimed the main speaker was the Sah Sarkaryavah (joint general secretary) of the RSS. 

The same university administration last year had denied permission to Gopal’s colleague Suresh Soni to address a gathering of teachers. Soni was invited by the National Democratic Teachers Front (NDTF), the teacher’s body of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

NDTF and the ABVP have been at the forefront of the agitation to opposing the imposition of FYUP in the university. Even senior party leaders like Arun Jaitley have written on the matter. Delhi unit of the BJP in both its manifestos for the state and the Lok Sabha polls has demanded scrapping of the programme, whose implementation fetched Delhi University vice chancellor Dinesh Singh a Padma Shri from the outgoing Manmohan Singh government.

Insiders said that the move comes with an eye to save the FYUP. ‘Rai, who was earlier assaulted by ABVP workers, by sharing dais with RSS top honcho is trying to send message of alignment with the people who could form government post-16 May,’ said a university teacher. ‘With the local unit of the BJP and the RSS completely at war with the university administration, the extra-ordinary invitation to Krishna Gopal is an indication of raising the white flag,’ added the teacher.