What was the beef at IIT Madras? My account
IIT Madras - a beautiful lush campus that’s got a peaceful aura of intellect. I’ve literally grown up here, having done by schooling on this campus. And the picture it paints to many in Chennai is a complete contrast of what’s been happening in the last few days.
Academia trumps politics and debate trumps protest - so what transpired over the last one week that has sullied the name of this prestigious institute? Here’s my account of the showdown on the IIT Madras campus.
A PhD student and an MS student are languishing in hospital with serious injuries. So what happened that Tuesday noon in the Jain mess on the campus?
Well, here’s what Sooraj’s friends claim - Sooraj entered the Jain mess, Manish and eight of his friends cornered him over the beef fest that he organised and then went on to beat him up.
Sooraj’s friends have been rather public about their account of that faceoff and have demanded that Manish and his friends be punished by the IIT administration. Many student organisations have backed Sooraj, saying the "right wing" has struck again.
But here’s my version of the event - Manish entered the Jain mess, saw Sooraj there and immediately confronted him over the beef fest. Things got ugly as the duo got into a verbal spat. Manish and Sooraj came to blows and both were left bleeding as the other students in the mess separated them.
IIT Madras has issued a statement; the police have maintained that this was a scuffle involving two students, nothing more. Why then has this been blown out of proportion and highlighted as a left versus right battle?
For those of you who will now level allegations of bias against me, maybe I am biased. I refuse to believe that a campus that was serene and boasts of some of the best minds of the country has turned into another institute filled with hate and violence.
IIT Madras has always allowed its students to express their opinions freely and that’s how a beef festival was even conducted on the campus! And in the last few days, several students have approached me just to set the record straight - that the campus has not been "ravaged" by protests or politics, the institute doesn’t care about anybody’s political leanings or beliefs.
What's really happening is that these students have become a pawn for a larger political agenda on beef. The Centre's notification kicked off an altercation between two students, and one of them seems to be getting all the sympathy from political leaders.
IITians too have said that all this is being done just for a few people to get some brownies points. But at what cost? The biggest fear that students now have is that this kind of mindless violence between two students could change the dynamics on the entire campus.
But let’s be clear, IIT Madras is and will never be a JNU, no matter how much our political players try.