Durga Puja is being celebrated in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi with great Devotion and Enthusiasm. Thousands of students gather in the morning and evening to take the blessings of Maa Durga. The students come up in traditional clothing and the whole ambience gives an essence of togetherness.

The idol of Maa Durga placed in the Kaveri-Periyar hostel lawn has transformed the JNU Campus into a holy place where thousands of devotees from far end of Delhi, including the parents of the students and alumnis are coming daily to take blessings of Maa Durga. Durga Puja celebration of JNU is very famous around the city as the beginning of Durga Puja celebrations in JNU was in very tough times when practicing Hindu religion in JNU was very difficult.

Durga Puja celebrations in JNU trace back to 1998 when few students of Periyar hostel decided to keep Navratri fast and requested the hostel administration to provide them with the Navratri specific food (Falahar) for those 9 days. The hostel administration refused to facilitate any such demand citing this as a danger to the secular framework of the campus.

The hypocrisy was that the same hostel administration permitted Iftar party to be organized in the mess of the hostels. The cost of the meals for the Iftar was added to the mess bills of even Hindu students without their consent. The Durga Puja in JNU initially begin with only aarti which was done in one of the rooms of Periyar hostel where a couple of students gathered to take blessings of Maa Durga and Hawan which was done outside the hostel premises.

Maa Durga’s idol was kept for the first time in 2000, that was when the whole Durga Puja celebrations took a grand form and further evolved into a celebration in which today more than 5000 people gather in the Durga Puja pandal daily that includes students, professors, eminent personalities and alumnis.

It was in 2013, that an organization AIBSF associating itself with the backward students on the JNU Campus distributed pamphlets which had abusive words for Maa Durga. AIBSF had internal support of JNUSU which itself didn’t condemn the abusive content meant for Maa Durga. The glorious 26 years of Durga Puja celebrations in JNU is itself a justification that the common students of JNU have whole heartedly rejected such organizations who in the name of appeasement of minority community continuously try to persecute innocent Hindus in JNU and elsewhere.

Selective practice of Secularism is a danger to the Culture and Religious traditions of Bharat.

Today, Communist circles in Bharat stand with Hamas to appease Bharatiya Muslims in the name of Religion but they have no sentiments for the citizens of Israel who are being killed by Hamas brutally. When one can differentiate between the wounds of two small kids on the basis of their religion, you may categorize that person as an insane radical. It is the selective approach of these organizations that doesn’t allow them to protest against the communist government of China for persecuting Uyghur Muslims in China.

Neither of these organizations stand with the Hindus of Bangladesh when they are religiously persecuted and the idols of HIndu gods and goddesses are destroyed by the radical majoritarian community of Bangladesh. The Jan-Jagaran of the Hindu youth has pushed these organizations on the verge of their ends which has further made them to try a last spell of their combined attack on the natural culture and heritage of Bharat.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s historical Path Sanchalan is the final nail on the coffin of Left and anti- Bharat forces in JNU.

On 22 October, RSS Swayamsevaks marched on the lanes of JNU as a mark of the Vijay Dashami Utsav celebrations for the first time in the history of JNU. RSS was formed on the same day of Vijay Dashami in 1925. Then after RSS organizes Path Sanchalan as a mark of the day. Vijay Dashami is celebrated as a mark of the win of Truth over Evil. It is believed that on this day Raja Ramchandra slayed Ravana. Vijay Dashami also heralds the start of the harvest season. Pandavas are believed to defeat their enemy army on this day.

Truly, the RSS’s Path Sanchalan on 22 October in JNU marks the end of religious hate politics in JNU. The Cultural Jagaran of the student community of JNU stands significant as more than 150 students joined the Path Sanchalan in full RSS Ganavesh. The march of the Swayamsevaks was greeted by flowers throughout their journey by the students of the JNU. The JNU stood still watching the Path Sanchalan, taking pictures and recording the glorious moment in their mobile phones. The ambience of the JNU Campus was amusing when the Swayamsevaks sang “Jago to ek baar Hindu Jago to”.

The patriotic and religious fervour of the student community shook the breaking Bharat and tukde-tukde forces to its core. The organizations which have celebrated the killings of CRPF jawans on the hands of Naxalites, raised slogans like ‘Bharat tere tukde honge’ on the campus, shed tears for terrorists like Afzal Guru and Yakub Menon and organized protest gatherings on the killings of gangsters like Atique Ahmed released statements condemning the Path Sanchalan and called it a danger to the secular framework of the university.

Their statement truly stands totally violating the religious and individual freedom of a being. However, the arguments made by these organizations have been rejected by the JNU student community. The day on which this article is been penned marks Shubha Navami, the Durga Puja Pandal and the idol of Maa Durga are decorated with flowers and the Durga Puja Samiti, JNU is estimating more than 10000 devotees to gather in the Puja Pandal for the Prasadam.

Durga Puja Greetings

-Satyam Vats