Indian-American community organisations have urged the Chancellor of Rutgers University in New Jersey to prohibit the display of a separatist Kashmiri flag on its campus highlighting that it would send a wrong message as universities in the US are roiled by protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Universities in the US are demanding that their universities divest from Israel and are pushing the US government to push Israel into agreeing to a ceasefire deal that ends the war.
Student protesters in Rutgers University said the administration agreed to eight of its 10 demands on Friday.
The ninth point of the demand list says: “Display of the flags of occupied peoples – including but limited to Palestine, Kurds, and Kashmiris – in all areas displaying international flags across the Rutgers campuses”.
People familiar with the developments told news agency PTI that the university has not conceded to the demands of the protesting group.
They further added that the office of the chancellor will take stock of the flags displayed across Rutgers’s New Brunswick Campus and ensure appropriate representation of students enrolled in academics at the university.
The demands put forth by the student protesters infuriated several Indian American groups.
Rutgers University “has caved,” Suhag Shukla from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) said in a post on social media platform X.
Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) echoed the HAF’s sentiments. Rutgers University “caved in to hate and approved the display of a flag that brought terror to the small surviving indigenous minority in Kashmir,” CoHNA said in a post on X.
“Under this flag, Kashmiri Hindus were systematically cleansed out of their homeland Kashmir – a place named for the ancient Hindu Sage Kashyap,” it said.
Rutgers University has a large number of Indian students. New Jersey has one of the largest concentrations of Indian Americans in the US.
Thomas Abraham, Chairman of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), wrote a letter to Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway protesting students’ demand to display flags of displaced people on its campus.
“We are very surprised to read that you are considering the demand of protesting students to display the flags of occupied peoples – including but not limited to Palestinians, Kurds, and Kashmiris – in all areas displaying international flags across the Rutgers campuses,” he said.
“This is a dangerous territory for Rutgers to get involved (in). (With) this demand, you are questioning the integrity of India. Kashmir is very much (a) part of India. There is no separate flag for Kashmir. Kashmir residents are not displaced people,” Abraham asserted.
“In fact, the displaced people are the Hindu minorities who had to leave Kashmir because of violence against them. If Rutgers displays such a flag of Kashmir, that will be the beginning of more sit-ins by students who are opposed to such flags,” he warned.
“As a public educational institution, which belongs to everyone, Rutgers University has no business getting into the internal conflicts of countries around the world,” the letter said.
(with inputs from PTI)
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