(As students all across India are fighting to defend their political freedom from assaults by the central government and the Sangh Parivar, Bodhi Commons is republishing the Emergency Files, a series of pamphlets brought out by the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) in Jawaharlal Nehru University, during the period of the Emergency (1975-77). This is the fifth part of the series. The previous parts can be read here (part 1) and here (part 2) and here (part 3) and here (part 4).)
With the derecognition of the JNU Students Union (JNUSU) and the arrests of JNUSU President D.P. Tripathi and Councillor Sitaram Yechury, the repression of the students movement in JNU reached a crescendo. National leaders fighting the Emergency felt the need to intervene at this point. Legendary communist leader A.K. Gopalan wrote a letter to the Prime Minister protesting against the tyrannical attacks unleashed against the students of JNU. The letter was secretly circulated in the JNU campus as well, as per the well-established practice of the democratic forces in the campus fighting the Emergency. The letter is reproduced below.
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(To be continued)