New Delhi, Dec 26 (PTI) Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was shown black flags at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) by left-wing students who were staging a protest during his visit to the campus in 2005 .

The incident led to show-cause notices being issued to students by the university with few of them being arrested by the Delhi Police. However, a day later, Singh intervened, suggesting vice-chancellor (VC) BB Bhattacharya to be lenient with the students.

In his speech at the university where he visited to unveil a statue of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Singh had said: “Every member of a university community, if he wishes to aspire to be worthy of the university, must accept the truth. from Voltaire’s classic statement. Voltaire proclaimed: “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This idea must be the cornerstone of a liberal institution. “The students waved black flags at him. The VC had then received a call from the PMO asking him to be lenient with the students as protesting is their right. The students were later released after a warning,” said a retired JNU professor on condition of anonymity.

JNU has been the epicenter of widespread protests over the past decade, with the 2016 sedition controversy sparking a debate over free speech on campus.

Bhattacharya had narrated the incident in 2016 in an interview.

“Manmohan Singh had said to me ‘please bear with me, Sir’. I said I should at least warn them… but the problem today is that the lines of communication with the students are broken,” he said.

Former JNU student leader Umar Khalid, who was also booked for sedition in 2016 and is still in jail in another case, had also shared the incident.

“In 2005, Manmohan Singh faced black flags at JNU to protest his economic policies. It became big news. The administrator immediately sent notices to students. The very next day, the Prime Minister’s Office intervened and asked the administrator not to take any action because protesting was a democratic right of students,” he said in a message on X (then Twitter) in 2020.

“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, confronted with the slogans and black flags of the student demonstrators, began his speech by quoting Voltaire: ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the dead your right to say it'”, he added. PTI GJS GJS KSS KSS

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