Outrage at MS University: Some links

Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to MG Road to be a part of the protest yesterday. Here's the Hindu's report. Here are a few blog posts about the protest in other cities:

Kochi: Renu Ramanath (pictures and a report).

Mumbai: Amit Varma (picture and a report).

New Delhi: Communalism Watch (a picture).

MSU Diary has been collecting opinion pieces from old media. Jagat from Montreal has published a letter from a friend urging people to register their protest with the Indian embassies.

This opinion piece in the Indian Express by Peter Ronald DeSouza (of CSDS) lays out the issues, and concludes with the following:

The governor, as visitor of the university, must, in the strongest possible terms, reprimand and censure the vice chancellor and pro-vice chancellor. The governor must summon the director general of police and seek from him an explanation for the police action. The Supreme Court must do what it did in the case of the non-implementation of the ICDS scheme, and summon suo moto all the directors general of police, of all the states, and instruct them to curb such vandalism that is growing across the country. It is from the new frontiers which the artist scales that new ideas come. The artist must be protected. The artist must be honoured. We must do it for our own sake.

Rekha Rodwittiya, an alumna of the Faculty of Fine Arts at MSU, has another opinion piece in the Indian Express. Here's the concluding paragraph which echoes this famous poem:

Be forewarned, when civil liberties are so blatantly trampled upon and the ranting of fundamentalists becomes the rule of law, then none of us are safe any more. Freedom is not a seven-letter word in a game of scrabble. It is a constitutional right that is and must be held sacred within a democratic nation and be upheld as the birthright of every citizen. We are fast heading towards a system where all the voices of dissent will be stifled. It is happening to someone else today. It may be your turn tomorrow.