Students from a little-heard of university in Haryana’s Greater Noida marched to the Congress office in Delhi to protest alleged injustices in the party’s election manifesto. But there was one small problem—none of the students knew what the Congress manifesto said. Worse, they struggled to read the content of the posters in their hands and were unable to explain what they were protesting.
The incident came to light through a viral video in which Aaj Tak reporter Ashutosh Mishra spoke to the students. They were purportedly protesting against proposals to introduce inheritance tax and wealth redistribution. The video, which had the internet in splits, also gave rise to questions on the ignorance of the students.
One student told Ashutosh, “We are youth and want a developed Bharat, that is why we are protesting.” But when it was pointed out that the protest is on wealth redistribution and was asked what that meant, he had no answer. A second student said they were protesting the injustices in the Congress manifesto, but admitted to having little clue about the manifesto’s contents.
Another student holding a placard saying “Say no to wealth vultures” was not only unable to read it fully, but also couldn’t say why she was protesting, ending the conversation by asking Ashutosh to ask the question to someone else. Unfortunately, she was not the only one who couldn’t read the placards. A student’s poster said, “No place for urban Naxals in Viksit Bharat”. After he finished reading it, not without some trouble, he was asked to explain it, but again, now unsurprisingly, he too didn't know what it meant. Notably, it wasn't just the English posters that the students had trouble reading, some couldn’t read their Hindi posters either.
The scene quickly turned comical with embarrassed students escaping the camera and some hiding their faces behind the posters.
The students were from Galgotias University in Greater Noida, which according to its website, was set up in 2011 by Shakuntala Educational and Welfare Society. In addition to the university, the society says that it runs three colleges — Galgotias Institute of Management & Technology (GIMT), Galgotias College of Engineering & Technology (GCET), and Galgotia College of Pharmacy (GCP).
Before the video was subjected to widespread ridicule on the internet, university CEO Dhruv Galgotia, who along with the university chancellor Suneel Galgotia and Padmini Galgotia, is a member of the Smt Shakuntala Society, had shared pictures of the protest on social media handle.
Dhruv’s Instagram account contains several posts in which he is seen with top BJP leaders like Ministers Rajnath Singh, Dharmendra Pradhan, Yogendra Upadhyaya, and UP CM Yogi Adityanath. Another post showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh posing with students, with the caption, “Proud to see Galgotias cadets with the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi”.