Why is ABVP putting up posters of beheadings, mutilated bodies in DU?
"What are these pictures for?" Before I could finish my question, a fairly young man in his 20s told me, "Aap ABVP ke march mein aaye ho, pata chal jayega (This is an ABVP march, you will soon find out)."
As I started walking from the Metro station to Arts Faculty in Delhi University's North Campus on March 2, one after another, huge billboards showing blood-soaked bodies and beheadings started to come in sight. There was also a picture of one Suresh Babu's mutilated body. He was killed in Kerala.
But the question is how does it make sense to put up such gory pictures on the streets of Delhi University?
While I took pictures of these billboards, ordinary college students kept asking me with disgusted faces: "Who put these pictures up?" I shrugged my shoulders to avoid giving any explanation.
Geeta Sharma, an inspector deployed to control the crowd on the campus, kept requesting the ABVP members to take down these posters, but no one budged.
"Ye photo vichlit karti hai, hataaiye (These pictures are distrubing. Please remove them)," she requested the members.
"Umar Khalid isi communism vichardhara ka hai jahan RSS aur Hindu leaders ke sir kaate jaate hai. Dekhne do ye janta ko aur jaanne do ki ye desh mein yeh chahte hai ya shanti (Umar Khalid belongs to the same idealogy that's responsible for the beheadings of RSS and Hindu leaders. Let the people see these images and decide whether they want this or peace)," ABVP members in saffron kurtas roared, and the poor lady inspector had to walk away.
Interestingly, they also put up the pictures of animals getting slaughtered.
Is ABVP missing the point?
The debate on dissent has now shifted to how communism is harmful. And, of course, the vague captions in the pictures imply that today's march was more of an attack on communism than on freedom of speech and expression.