- Sunday, May 19, 2024
Thomas Abraham, chairman of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin, wrote to Rutgers University-New Brunswick, that by considering such demand, it was questioning India’s integrity.
By: Twinkle Roy
INDIAN Americans have asked a university in the US not to allow displaying the now-defunct flag of Kashmir to represent the province’s “occupied people” as part of conceding some of the demands of protesting students. Apart from the people of Kashmir, Palestinians and Kurds were also among the list.
In a letter to Jonathan Holloway, president, Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey state, Thomas Abraham, chairman of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin wrote, “This is a dangerous territory for Rutgers to get involved”, Indo-Asian News Service reported.
Drawing attention to the former state and currently a Union Territory being “very much a part of India”, he wrote, “By even considering this demand, you are questioning the integrity of India.”
Read: India speaks on US campus protests: ‘There has to be a right balance…’
He also said that there is no separate flag for Kashmir and its residents are not displaced people.
“In fact, the displaced people are the Hindu minorities who had to leave Kashmir because of violence against them,” Abraham wrote.
The university has not implemented the demand.
Read: Reporting in Modi’s India challenging, says Australian journalist who ‘was forced to leave’
Last week, Francine Conway, the chancellor of Rutgers University-New Brunswick, wrote in a three-page letter to the protesting students that her office would take stock of flags that are displayed across the university’s campus and “ensure appropriate representation of students enrolled in academic and other spaces”.
The letter also said that the students had wanted “display the flags of occupied peoples — including but not limited to Palestinians, Kurds, and Kashmiris – in all areas displaying international flags across the Rutgers campuses”.
The protests at Rutgers were part of many such incidents led by students of several US universities over the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. The students have put forth 10 demands and the top among them, which was common among all university protests, was divestment from companies doing business with Israel or supporting its war efforts and cutting links with Israel.
To this, Conway said the university is looking into the matter and will discuss the findings with the students.
Indian Americans have expressed their discontent particularly on allowing the demand for the display of the flag of the “occupied people” of Kashmir.
“So @RutgersU has caved,” Suhag Shukla of the Hindu American Foundation wrote in a post on X.
So @RutgersU has caved. But check this out.
“Display the flags of occupied peoples including…Kashmiris?
How nice.
Let’s ask the indigenous people of Kashmir.
Hey Kashmiri Pandit friends, Shall we send your flag to Rutgers? 🇮🇳 https://t.co/LhseUW0KoX pic.twitter.com/QAKIfxOY25
— Suhag A. Shukla (@SuhagAShukla) May 3, 2024
Jammu and Kashmir was permitted to have its own flag under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution but after its abrogation by the Narendra Modi government in August 2019, it has been removed. The article had given the former state a special status.
(With agency inputs)
