Reading on Umar Khalid at NLSIU
Around 20 students, pursuing various programmes at the law school, gathered and took turns reading one paragraph each from the letter.
Another student who attended the reading said education was about engaging with different perspectives. But this is a university space, and listening to someone with an altogether different view is what education is supposed to be about,” the student said. Bengaluru: The postponement of a documentary screening on Umar Khalid at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), following threats from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), did not deter students from gathering at the venue Monday evening. At the scheduled time, a group of students held an independent reading of Khalid’s latest letter, ‘A Day in Tihar Jail’. The reading was held at the university’s amphitheatre at 7pm, the same time and place where the screening had been scheduled. They later read out the Preamble to the Constitution and discussed the reading among themselves. “Education lives beyond classrooms and universities. We engage in the process of educating ourselves only when we read more, write more, debate and discuss our ideas with others, also hear opinions from people who do not agree with us, watch movies and documentaries, read poetry, novels, non-fiction books. It can be anything. Consumption of knowledge and ideas is the first duty of a student. Reading and learning is a self-liberating act and students must be committed to the pursuit of knowledge. If a law school doesn’t follow the top-most legal scholar this country has seen, isn’t it a shameful thing?” asked a student who attended the reading. “Education as a tool is meant for you to sit with somebody, discuss and have a dialogue, and understand various perspectives. We all have contradictory political opinions and one may not always be right.