We will not back down: A letter from a Ramjas student to a teacher

Date: Thursday, 23 February, 2017, 10:07AM

I have not been able to sleep at night... The incidents, the violent scenes in the college were on a loop in my mind. They have all videographed us and have given us rape threats and acid attack threats. They are constantly trying to instill fear in us... But we will not back down!

We'll be out on the streets... protesting today as well...amidst their violence...their abuses..their threats! We won't let this fire to die down. The beauty of this movement of resistance by Ramjas was that neutral students who don't associate with any student organisation or political ideology have also joined in numbers against the ABVP hooliganism.

And they were able to rationally engage with what was going around in the campus. And they were with us...and they became "US"...and it was not a Left vs Right struggle...as was out in the media. It was Ramjas against ABVP goondaism. It was silence doing it's magic against violence. We were peacefully sitting near canteen...fearful of the uncertainty looming around...

Questions of what next and who next...terrified us...traumatised us....as we saw friends getting beaten up...thrashed and manhandled by ABVP goondas. Our silence was hurting them...our songs of resistance were pricking them. They came up with the national flag...and hurled abuses...chanted Bharat Mata ki Jai. We were silent.

Although we were numerically less...our silent mode of protest affected them so badly that they sporadically attacked us from different sides...trying to batter our strength. Although it was disappointing for a lot of us to silently sit there while they provoked us and we couldn't hit them back...

But still from the way we've carried out our protest yesterday...I've realised that sometimes silence works wonders! And it hit them at the right spot. As we were struggling inside...our friends outside the gate were carrying out the protest that we were not allowed to carry out. They were beaten up...but they didn't back down! We will not back down.

The social media is flooded with their violence...first hand accounts of what happened. We are brutally exposing ABVP...and will continue to do so. And hopefully this is the beginning of something DU has never seen or felt before!

Edited by Jhinuk Sen

This letter first appreared on Dilip Simeon's blog