A group of young men and women—teenagers and those in their mid-twenties—busy reading books quietly at a park in Ahmedabad in Gujarat had to undergo physical attack by men from Bajrang Dal (BD) and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) for the very act of reading and their choice of books such as ‘I Am Malala’ and ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’.
‘I Am Malala’, by Pakistani human rights activist Malala Yousafzai, is the account of her campaign for girls’ education and rights. ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ is Jewish girl Anne Frank’s experiences during the Nazi persecution of Jews and the Holocaust in her country, Germany.
The attack on the book reading session, which took place at AUDA Garden in Ahmedabad’s Vastrapur on Thursday, August 27, has drawn criticism from across India, and pressure is rising on police in BJP-ruled Gujarat to take strict action as per law against the perpetrators.
“Check if they are Muslims by pulling down their pants,” one of the attackers was caught on camera as telling his companions during the attack on the reading session participants. Bajrang Dal members Hiren Rabari and Jimit Rabari were named in an FIR filed in connection with the incident at Vastrapur police station in Ahmedabad.
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Members of Bajrang Dal and VHP also allegedly used abusive language, tore many books the group was reading as they beat up the participants in the reading session. Social media is flooded with photos of injuries sustained by the participants.
There were nearly 50 young men and women reading books at the reading session organised by Students and Youth Collective Ahmedabad (SYCA), an NGO, as a protest against action by a prominent school—Anand Niketan School at Shilaj, Ahmedabad—against two books: ‘I Am Malala’ and ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’.
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The school had taken the two books off the library and placed the library supervisor, Munja Sams, earlier in August after both Bajrang Dal and VHP asked why the two books were in the library and staged protests at the school. These protests had taken place just days after an incident involving a tiny shard of glass found in a student’s meal at the school, leading to the student’s hospitalisation.
“Why are there non-Hindu teachers in a Hindu school?” was what some of the posters carried by the protesters had on them. Other slogans included: “Knowledge of Swami Vivekananda and the Vedas — this is India’s honour”, “When will you teach the knowledge of the Vedas?”, and “Why are children being given Islamic knowledge instead of education?”
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After those protests, a show-issued a notice was issued to the school by Ahmedabad district education officer RM Chaudhary, asking it why it was forcing children to read certain types of books. The school denied the charges but dropped the two books from the library and the reading lists.
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A spokesperson for the school told the Ahmedabad-headquartered fact-checking organisation Alt News that neither ‘I Am Malala’ nor ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ was part of the school curriculum. Both books were removed from the school library after the protests and the show-cause notice from the DEO, she said, adding, “Apart from these two books, books by Veer Savarkar and the Dalai Lama are also available in the library. However, after the education officer issued a notice, both books have currently been removed”.
