Student-activists remember Gauri Lankesh as they fight for justice
The Hindu
‘Gauri transgressed all ‘Lakshman Rekhas’ that Hindutva imposed on women’
Family members, student-activists, lawyers, and friends of Gauri Lankesh held a memorial on Sunday to remember the activist-journalist who was assassinated four years ago on September 5. “The very act of remembering Gauri Lankesh is an act of resistance as the incumbent regime wants us to forget those who stood up to power and dissent, as if they never happened,” said Natasha Narwal, a student-activist who was incarcerated for 13 months in a Delhi riots case and recently released on bail. She was speaking at ‘Bullets cannot kill Gauri Lankesh’s legacy’, a memorial event organised by the Gauri Memorial Trust. The event saw three student-activists — Ms. Narwal, Devangana Kalita, and Asif Iqbal Tanha, jailed and out on bail in the Delhi riots cases — speak on Gauri’s legacy. “In her last days, Gauri had adopted Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar, and Jignesh Mewani as her sons. I am sure, if she were to be around, she would have adopted you as well. It is in student-activists like you, she saw hope for this country. Now, I do too,” said Kavita Lankesh.Several principals of government and private schools in Delhi on Tuesday said the Directorate of Education (DoE) circular from a day earlier, directing schools to conduct classes in ‘hybrid’ mode, had caused confusion regarding day-to-day operations as they did not know how many students would return to school from Wednesday and how would teachers instruct in two modes — online and in person — at once. The DoE circular on Monday had also stated that the option to “exercise online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians”. Several schoolteachers also expressed confusion regarding the DoE order. A government schoolteacher said he was unsure of how to cope with the resumption of physical classes, given that the order directing government offices to ensure that 50% of the employees work from home is still in place. On Monday, the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had, on the orders of the Supreme Court, directed schools in Delhi-NCR to shift classes to the hybrid mode, following which the DoE had issued the circular. The court had urged the Centre’s pollution watchdog to consider restarting physical classes due to many students missing out on the mid-day meals and lacking the necessary means to attend classes online. The CAQM had, on November 20, asked schools in Delhi-NCR to shift to the online mode of teaching.