Book reading by activist cancelled at TISS, college says no police pressure

The cancellation of a book-reading session in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai by activist Arun Ferreira, who was recently acquitted on charges of being associated with Naxals, has become the subject of much controversy.

Ferreira was to read from his book Colours of the Cage but the talk was cancelled just minutes before the event  According to a report in Times of India no clear reason was given for the cancellation. First it was said that “there was no space available,” while some students said that “police had ‘almost forced’ the organisers to cancel the event,” adds the report.

Ferreira, who ran an organisation called Deshbhakti Yuva Manch, was imprisoned in 2007 on charges of being a Naxal and spent nearly four years, eight months in confinement. His book deals with his imprisonment and the mistreatment of political prisoners in India.

The Times of India report quoted TISS Director Parasuraman as saying, “The students failed to take permission… The common room was not available at that time. The lecture was not cancelled but postponed.” A Scroll.in  report quoted Parasuraman denying that the police had entered the campus.

Ferreira has meanwhile stated that the police forced the campus authorities to cancel the talk and told TOI that TISS pulled down the Facebook page on the event as well, which shows the event is not being rescheduled. He has not been given an official reason for the cancellation either.

In the email sent out to students, which Firstpost has seen_,_ the director said that the student’s union did not take permission from the Registrar and that the security staff “requested the literary secretary to reschedule the meeting to some other day”.

The email also reiterates the director’s earlier position that the police doesn’t enter the campus without his express permission.

According to the email, Ferreira took offence to this rescheduling. The director goes on to say in the email that “my experience over the past 26 hours has convinced me that Mr Arun Ferreira’s talk would have no scholarly value and so he will not be invited to talk at the institute.”

The email notes that the institute has “never stopped any speakers” and that the institute takes exception to those who spread wrong information about it.

It should be noted though that TISS has allowed talks by most speakers such as Dr Binayak Sen (who was arrested and held in jail for a long time for being an ‘alleged’ Maoist supporter) and has never really cancelled a talk or movie screening. This is the first time that a speaker has alleged that a talk was cancelled due to police pressure.

The student’s union has also not given any clear answer to the community in TISS or to the media as to why the event was cancelled. Trombay police station, under whose jurisdiction TISS falls also denied that they had any such order to cancel Ferreira’s talk.