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Busts of Savarkar, Bose and Bhagat installed in DU
New Delhi The Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) on Tuesday placed busts of Veer Savarkar, Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose outside the varsity’s arts faculty
New Delhi The Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) on Tuesday placed busts of Veer Savarkar, Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose outside the varsity’s arts faculty complex, without obtaining the necessary permission.
Shakti Singh, president of DUSU, led by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), said the move was taken after the administration had ignored several pleas in this regard. “Since last November, we had been writing to the university administration seeking permission to install the busts. However, there was no response. So, we had to take this step,” Singh said, adding that the busts were installed early Tuesday.
Despite several requests for comment, through text messages and phone calls, proctor Neeta Sehgal and the registrar remained unavailable.
Made of white marble and placed atop a red sandstone pillar, the busts were adorned with flowers, as onlookers clicked pictures of the structure, amid high police presence.
“There was no other installation for these freedom fighters in our university. We are trying to right the wrongs. That is why we have installed these busts,” Piyush Thakur, former president of the law faculty, said.
While Singh refused to divulge the cost of the statues, he said the funds were collected from students and through contributions from people sharing similar beliefs. “We want the narrative around these leaders to change and the youth to know about the contribution of these freedom fighters,” Singh said, adding that though the “the three may have used different paths, but they had the same goal.”
The statues were made in Delhi at a cost of ₹3.5-4 lakh, an ABVP member said on the condition of anonymity.
“We will not remove the busts. But if the administration allows, we can set it up elsewhere in the university,” Singh said.
A senior ABVP member said that the installations would soon be moved to the DUSU office and these were placed outside the arts faculty complex temporarily, as a mark of protest.
Last week, the DUSU had also raised a demand to name the student union office after Savarkar. The National Students Union of India (NSUI) wrote to the DU administration, asking them to disallow ABVP from renaming the office, on the grounds that it would polarise DUSU elections. The All India Students Association (AISA) also condemned the move, saying ABVP was playing on nationalism, ahead of students’ elections.
The move comes weeks ahead of students’ elections and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. “Sometimes, leaders take such measures to divert the attention from the important issues and every party tries to engage in ideological penetration. There’s no sense of putting these statues together, since they are so different ideologically. While one was closer to Hindutva, the other two were leaning towards Congress and revolutionary socialism,” said Manish Kumar, an MA student of the university.
Atul Tripathi, a postgraduate student from the Faculty of Law, said, “Given Savarkar had no contribution to our freedom struggle, putting him alongside Bhagat Singh and Bose is utterly disrespectful. It’s an attempt to paper over the shortcomings of the poster boy of Hindutva and glorify him as a freedom fighter.”
