Police complaint over casteist graffiti on JNU walls

New Delhi, December 2

Campus politics returned to haunt the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Friday with a police complaint filed at the Vasant Kunj station over casteist graffiti on the walls of the prestigious central university.

Advocate Vineet Jindal filed the complaint after students and professors of the JNU woke up to shocking slogans splashed across the walls of the School of International Studies.

The slogans read: “Brahmins and baniyas leave the campus; we will avenge; there will be blood.”

Outside the chambers of at least three teachers — Parvesh Kumar, Nalin Mohapatra and Vandana Mishra — the graffiti read: “Go back to shakhas (read RSS branches).

JNU ABVP president Rohit Kumar accused a section of students for pasting casteist graffiti on the walls in violation of Delhi High Court orders that bar students from defacing varsity property.

“Vandalism continues. It came to light this time because even teachers have not been spared,” Kumar said.

JNU VC Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit is learnt to have instituted an inquiry into the incident, saying exclusivist tendencies will not be put up with on the campus.

The BJP was quick to denounce the developments with Adesh Gupta, Delhi unit president, terming the slogans a reflection of the “anti-India mindset”.

Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij also reacted, terming the graffiti as dangerous and part of a larger conspiracy to weaken India.

The JNU has had a history of clashes between the left and right wing ideologies, with the campus witnessing unprecedented violence in January 2020 when some masked miscreants entered the campus and attacked some students and teachers, besides damaging property.