A group of students and teachers from different colleges across Delhi University were denied permission to organise a cultural programme celebrating 70 years of the Indian democracy due to “security reasons”.
‘DU Conversations’ on 3rd August 2017 was refused permission by the Delhi School of Economics (DSE) director Pami Dua to sociology department to host the event at its lawns.
According to a press release issued by the organisers, they were informed a day before the event that it must be postponed. The DSE director informed the sociology department head that “in the absence of written communication from the SHO of Maurice Nagar Police Station, no activity can be held on the campus”.
When the students¬†tried arranging a new venue at the Arts Faculty, they weren’t allowed to meet the Proctor by the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of DU.
The CSO said¬†that since a student’s political party was holding its¬†‚Äúshakti pradarshan‚Äù in the university‚Äôs south Delhi campus, no security could be spared in case of any attack on the ‚ÄòDU Conversations‚Äô event.
An inspector then called the students to the Maurice Nagar police station and told them that he would not  allow the event since permission was needed from the Proctor’s office.
“Since we were going to discuss democracy, we’d talk about the opposition that students and teachers at Ramjas faced when they wanted to have a discussion in February. The idea was to discuss how students and teachers can deal with differing opinions, but the authorities cancelled it because they thought that some of the political parties might protest,” Aarushi, a DSE student, told the Times of India.
