New Delhi: Sometime after the crack of dawn on November 11, 2014, the day’s Times of India hit the stands at the university town of Aligarh. And my phone started ringing. It wouldn’t stop through the day.
My friends and fellow journalists were desperately trying to reach me, worried what will happen to me now after my article that the TOI had front-paged.
In Ramjas College in DU last week, it was the sovereignty and integrity of the nation under threat — as severe and mortal a threat as only a seminar with a title ‘Unveiling the State, Regions in Conflict’ can pose. In AMU 2014, the conservative crowd there wanted to “stone the shaitan” – yup, that would be me – for a newspaper report with a headline as staid as ‘Girls in AMU library will attract boys: VC’.
Even while I was fielding calls suggesting I stay at home – and if I had to venture out at all, I better stay out of the ‘University Circle’ – I was wondering what the fuss was about. Mine was not an expose or an investigative report; it was a straightforward news report of what Vice-Chancellor Lt General Zameeruddin Shah had told assembled media the day before.
In other words, it was a basic fight for human dignity that a bunch of brave girls were leading. I went back, spoke to a few more students and teachers. Yes, of course, I spoke to the V-C once again on what he had really intended to say. I wrote my piece, which I would say was just plain-vanilla news reporting.
There were student protests soon at the campus. The newspaper I worked for then and I were banned on the university campus. “Times of India, Aligarh Muslim University mein nahi aayega (Times of India won’t be allowed in the university), the venerable V-C Shah declared from the main campus.
Text messages poured in condemning me for trying to emerge as “a fighter for women’s rights in a place that has always been fair to women”. I was reminded how my “service” was more of disservice to the “community”. I was reminded the AMU has no biases and, in fact, holds women in high regards besides giving them “special treatment” that no other university follows.
There was a collective denial among students. “V-C is our father”, “Media apologise” screamed the placards that appeared on the streets. Girls, whose voices I gave vent to, boycotted me.
Add to that hit-list a third one, Gurmehar Kaur, the daughter of a Kargil martyr, now being accused of lowering the morale of the Indian Army apart from other sins. A BJP MP even compared her to Dawood Ibrahim. For standing up to her friends who were beaten black and blue in the DU campus, Gurmehar is being threatened with rape and murder by some self-appointed guardians of a 2,000-year-old civilisation.
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