Ex-Army gen’s ‘hate speech’ at IIT-M sparks controversy

CHENNAI: A lecture by a former Army major-general at IIT Madras on Thursday has sparked a controversy, with a student equating it to a "dangerous hate speech."
In a letter to the director, fifth-year dual degree student Abhinav Surya said he was unable to digest the fact that the institute provided a platform in the name of a special Independence Day lecture for a speech "filled with hatred, instigating violence among students" and which was loaded with "brewing enmity, inhumanity and glorification of brutality."
Alleging that it was designed to foster irrational jingoism, he quoted major general (retd) G D Bakshi as urging the audience to fight Pakistan to strengthen unity."The level of hatred in his speech was going out of proportions when he (Bakshi) said, and I quote, 'In our generation, we split Pakistan into 2. Your generation should split it into 4. Only then we can live in peace,' the letter said.
The most insulting part, Abhinav said, was when G D Bakshi "mocked our freedom movement." He quoted the former Army officer as saying that only Indians in the Army "got us freedom and whatever everyone else was doing in the name of 'ahimsa' was nonsense." "The underlying implication behind his constant call to give tit-for-tat was to call out [to] students to take up violent aggressiveness as their strategy," the letter said.
Soon, there was a veritable 'flood' of comments on social media, attacking and praising Bakshi's speech and Abhinav's letter.
On Friday, the former Army officer posted an online statement, sticking to his stand. He said a handful of Kashmiri students tried to shout him down when he began to talk on Jammu and Kashmir.
"To my very pleasant surprise they were jeered and booed down by a majority of the IIT boys and girls . They were restrained from disrupting the proceedings and forced to pipe down and let the lecture continue."
"I'm firmly convinced we have had enough at the hands of Pak. Their latest provocations on J&K are dangerous and India needs to hit back. Yes India needs to adopt a tit-for-tat approach to China which has armed Pak to the teeth," the post said.
There were about 10 students from Kashmir in the hall who were hurt by Bakshi's statements on civilians in J&K being attacked, Abhinav told TOI.
Abhinav admitted the students were intimidated by others. "Some of us were horrified at the hate mongering speech and wanted to leave the hall," said Abhinav, a member of the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle.
IIT-M director Bhaskar Ramamurthi said the speech was part of the extra mural lecture (EML) series. "[These] are not official events of the institute, so do not reflect on the institute in any manner." He said he had requested the EML team to check if legal boundaries were crossed in the speech. The only part of the event which was unpardonable was disrespect to a person of that age and stature, said IIT M project assistant Chirag Khalde and PhD student Deepak Ojha in a joint statement about how 'A well-placed speech now publicised as hate mongering speech.'