Modi invited to Jamia’s centenary convocation; AISA students to boycott event

On February 8, vice-chancellor Najma Akhtar had announced that the university had requested Modi to attend the centenary convocation ceremony “ and grace the occasion through virtual mode as the chief guest”.

After an invitation was extended to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to be chief guest of the centenary convocation ceremony of Jamia Millia Islamia, which is to be held virtually, students affiliated to the All India Students Association (AISA) have threatened to boycott the event.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a video conferencing in New Delhi.(ANI)

On February 8, vice-chancellor Najma Akhtar had announced that the university had requested Modi to attend the centenary convocation ceremony “ and grace the occasion through virtual mode as the chief guest”. On Thursday, Jamia students affiliated to AISA condemned the move and said the university had been “under attack from the Narendra Modi-led BJP government.”

A senior university official, requesting anonymity, said, “We have just extended an invitation to the PM and no date for the convocation has been decided as yet.”

But, AISA in a statement on Thursday said, “The Jamia administration has shown its authoritarian and anti-student tendencies once again by inviting Narendra Modi through virtual mode as the chief guest of the centenary convocation. Students of the varsity are shocked and displeased over the Prime Minister being invited to Jamia Millia Islamia as his ideas cross the line into hate speech and communalism.”

The student activists also raised the arrest of Jamia students for their alleged role in the Delhi riots and demanded an intervention by the administration in the matter. “We demand that Jamia administration uninvite PM Modi. We demand that Modi-led regime unconditionally release arrested Jamia students along with all political prisoners…Failure to comply with our demands would only cement our argument that Jamia administration is anti-student and pro-fascist and force our hand to call for a boycott of the centenary convocation if Narendra Modi is the chief guest,” AISA statement read.