AISA unequivocally condemns the removal of the video containing the defiant speech of Tanuj, PhD Scholar, JNU.
This reflects yet another attempt at curbing the freedom of speech of protesting students by censoring views expressed by students who called out the minister’s remarks calling them “Dehshatgard”. As the protest demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan reaches its 6th day, META (Instagram), on the orders of the Government of India, arbitrarily and unjustifiably removed the video of Tanuj, a PhD scholar in Law and Governance, JNU, in collaboration with the official page of AISA Delhi (aisa.delhi), on 24.06.2026, citing India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2011.
Tanuj in the video exposes Modi regime’s authoritarian and dangerous practice of branding every resisting voice as Urban Naxals, Khalistanis, or Terrorists, with the latest instance being Dharmendra Pradhan’s outrageous characterization of protesting students at Jantar Mantar as “Dehshatgard”. The twitter account of Abhijit Dipke has not been restored by meitY till now. What is ironic in this instance is that the video of Tanuj exposing the pattern of labeling resistors in absence of answers to fundamental questions of food security, education and survival, the video of Dharmendra Pradhan terming students as ‘Dehshatgard’ is not only present on the media, but is amplified by the ‘Godi’ and mainstream media.
This is part of a larger and deeply alarming trend of suppressing dissenting voices, while ministers, whose basic responsibility is public accountability and communication, brand protesting students as terrorists, and such inflammatory remarks are simultaneously amplified and legitimized by the mainstream media. This is at a time where a series of paper leaks of exams such as NEET, TRE-4, Lekhpal , and educational malpractices and compromises on exams like SSC and UPSC are grappling the country. Students are seeing the future with the eyes of uncertainty, and more than a dozen students have been subjected to institutional murder.
We condemn this shameful, undemocratic, and repressive act of curbing dissent by META and the Government of India and demand the immediate reinstatement of the video with immediate effect! AISA
