A college in Pune was forced to cancel an event organised for Mahatma Gandhi, allegedly after a right wing group threatened to disrupt it for inviting his great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi.
Taking to Twitter, Tushar Gandhi alleged that Modern College cancelled the event after receiving threats from a group called Patitpavan Sanstha.
“The Goli Maro Gang in Action,” he said in the tweet.
The programme, named ‘Revisiting Gandhi’, was organised at Modern College in association with Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU). Tushar Gandhi and another Gandhian Anvar Rajan were invited to address the programme on Friday.
“A few days back, I got a very guarded and polite call from one of the professors requesting me not to speak politically in my speech. I said, how do I speak on Gandhi and not speak on his political ideology? But I realised they might have some compulsions. But yesterday morning I got a phone call from another professor who had initially invited me. She was very apologetic. She said due to some circumstances, they were forced to cancel the program, which took me by surprise,” Gandhi told The Quint.
“One of the speakers who was invited is known to me and I called him up. He lives in Pune, Anwar Rajan. I enquired and he said he will try to find out the reason. Later he called me up and said that there were some threats made to the organisers, that if I was invited, this organisation was threatening they would disrupt the program. I was told it was this organisation called Patitpavan Sanstha,” he added.
Rajan told PTI that while Gandhi was supposed to make an inaugural speech, he himself was to give the keynote address during the seminar.
“Some members of the Patitpavan Sanstha approached the SPPU and took objection to the name of Tushar Gandhi, and subsequently, the Modern College authorities informed us about our presentations being cancelled,” he said.
“I spoke to Tushar Gandhi late on Thursday night. We are going to organise his separate programme in our college. We are not against Mahatma Gandhi. He is the subject of my study. Therefore, do not harbour any misunderstanding,” Dr Gajanan Ekbote, chairman of Progressive Education Society (PES), which runs the college, told PTI.
“Some students showed us the videos of Tushar Gandhi's speeches. They were of the view that the speeches are objectionable. They threatened to stage a protest if Tushar Gandhi came to the event. As exams are going on in the college, we cancelled the invite given to Tushar Gandhi so that a law and order situation does not arise,” he said.
“This event is being organised in association with SPPU, which has given Rs 3 lakh for it. We wanted to ensure that no political statements are made or such views are expressed during the event,” Ekbote added.
Sitaram Khade, an office-bearer of the Patitpawan Sanghatana's city unit, however, refuted the allegation that members his outfit had threatened to disrupt the event.
“We checked with our members. None of us had approached the college to oppose the programme,” he told PTI.
(With inputs from PTI)
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