3 students held over bid to burn Manusmriti

Krantikari Yuva Sangathan activists organised a protest outside the Delhi University’s Hansraj College on Wednesday to burn the Manusmriti, that they alleged was a derogatory text for women. The burning of the text was a symbolic protest against the alleged casteist administration of the college on the eve of 125th birth anniversary of Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

However, the police detained three KYS activists just as they were about to start burning the Manusmriti text. Harish Gautam, Puran Singh and Mukesh Kumar Mathur were taken to the Maurice Nagar police station, but were soon released following a protest outside the police station.

“It is ironic that while we are celebrating 125th birth anniversary of great leader and social reformer, Dr Ambedkar, the existence of Dalit community has become more miserable with the rise of casteist goons in the country, who are openly subjecting Dalits to torture and abuse as enjoined by Manusmriti. These casteist powers, which are gaining strength with active patronage from the RSS-BJP government, regard Manusmriti as a law-book par excellence,” Harish Gautam said. “These anti-dalit powers have begun to exert enormous influence in the university spaces as well. Casteist goons are being openly promoted by college and university administrations in the universities such as HCU, JNU, and now DU. The incident at Hansraj College is also connected to the other such incidents such as institutional murder of Rohith Vemula in HCU, where those from the Dalit community somehow entering higher educational institutes have to face casteist discrimination and in many cases, violence,” he added. On April 4, a dalit activist from the KYS was brutally beaten up and faced castiest abuse when he was sticking posters regarding the KYS protest at Hansraj College against the rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Bikaner district of Rajasthan.

However, the activists alleged that the college administration was in full connivance with those casteist goons did not take any action and blamed the Dalit activist for the same.