New Delhi: The BJP student wing ABVP, which is locked in ideological battle with the left-backed groups on JNU campus, is demanding that the varsity's central library be renamed as BR Ambedkar library and a statue of the architect of Indian Constitution be installed there.
The Left-affiliated groups active on campus have termed the demand "ironical" in wake of allegations that ABVP and BJP government are attacking students pursuing "Ambedkarite politics".
The university administration, however, maintained that any such proposal has to be cleared by the varsity's topmost decision making body-Executive Council (EC).
"We demand that the JNU central library be renamed as Ambdekar library and the premises should also have a statue of the dalit rights activists. Besides this we want that a copy of the original Constitution," said JNU students union Joint Secretary Saurabh Sharma, who is the lone ABVP member in the student body.
"I appeal the Registrar and Vice Chancellor to look into our demands. We will also place a proposal in this regard before the varsity's Academic Council (AC) in its next meeting," he added.
JNUSU Vice President Shehla Rashid Shora, who is a member of the Left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA) said, "it's a weird irony that, on the one hand, your (ABVP) government is terrorising students who pursue Ambedkarite politics, while you are hell bent upon appropriating Ambedkar. If you embrace Ambedkar, you have to also embrace Rohith Vemula."
"After disrupting several Ambedkar Jayanti-related events in DU, tearing off posters, banners, barging into public meetings on Ambedkar and screaming 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' in various parts of the country, ABVP in JNU has put up banners seeking signatures to rename JNU's Central Library as Ambedkar library!," Shehla alleged.
She further alleged that the subscription of crucial journals has been curtailed owing to shortage of funding from government.
"Crucial Journal subscriptions are being ended, there's tremendous pressure from MHRD to close down library at night, every conversation with the librarian starts with the lament that there are no funds. Will ABVP please also ask the MHRD why JNU is being unfairly denied funds for the library if it's the best university, as per MHRD's own ranking?," she said.
