Bengaluru: The participation of NCC cadets of the St. Joseph's College in the ‘I am Gauri’ rally to protest the killing of senior journalist/activist, Gauri Lankesh, has kicked off a row with a voluntary group, the Citizens for Democracy, writing to the Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar, to institute an inquiry into the matter.
Arguing that the NCC cadets had no business participating in a “political protest” against the Union government organised by the Forum Against Assassination of Gauri Lankesh, Mr Radhakrishna Holla, convener of the Citizens for Democracy, contended that they had flouted all norms of discipline and conduct of the National Cadet Corps prescribed under the NCC Act, 1948.
“The NCC, similar to the armed forces, is an institution of national pride, which stands heads and shoulders above the hurly burly of party politics and derives its great respect because of this political insulation. However, it is a matter of great dismay that the NCC unit of the St. Joseph’s College participated in a political march taken out to protest the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh. The march was organised by a group called ‘Forum Against Assassination of Gauri Lankesh’ and was supported by many political parties like the Indian National Congress, CPM, CPI, PFI, and the SDPI. It is pertinent to mention here that among the political organisations present were two fundamentalist organisations, Popular Front of India and SDPI , whose multiple members have been convicted by many courts for acts of terror.
The participation of NCC cadets from the said institution, in full uniform , was covered by many news organisations and the videos of the cadets shouting slogans along with other political party activists has been widely circulated on social media," Mr Holla said in the letter, requesting the minister to direct the authorities concerned to make appropriate inquiries and take strict action against the college management as well as the NCC officers of the unit.
