Campus protests reveal the West’s hypocrisy

May 8, 2024

NEW DELHI – S ince 17 April, pro-Palestine sitin demonstrations have impacted multiple American universities, bringing education to a standstill. Riot police employed force to take down protestors’ encampments while arresting thousands. Clashes between students and riot police are being reported across the US as also between proPalestine and pro-Israel demonstrators. Protests on this scale were last witnessed during the Vietnam war. Within days, protests spread to universities in the UK, Canada, France and Australia. In most countries, riot police were called in to quell the protests.

Protesting students are accusing Israel of committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza while demanding that educational institutions ‘divest’ from businesses linked with Israel as also companies providing military equipment to them. Most US universities invest their funding, donations as also earnings, in shares of major companies including defence suppliers. Brown, Northwestern and Rutgers universities are the few to have come to an agreement with protestors. Authorities classify these demonstrations as anti-Semitic, and controlled by ‘professional protestors.’ Professionals guiding protests is a global phenomenon and not a discovery of the West.

Professionally organized protests in India, funded by anti-India organizations and lobbies abroad, when quelled by employment of police power led to India being accused of ‘subverting freedom of speech’ and lowering its ‘democratic credentials.’ Why are those institutions and nations, which questioned India, silent now? Hypocrisy! In the US, even professors were manhandled and treated worse than criminals, but not a single entity objected. Universities across the West are threatening students with