by Dilip Simeon
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The Tamas meeting was (till then and without exaggeration) the single most significant public gathering in Delhi university, if not the city of Delhi in recent memory. It was definitely the most vibrant and inspired gathering within a walled space that I have had the privilege to witness. The police did their jobs well enough - after doing their best to scuttle the event (in which aim they very nearly succeeded), they turned up in strength to prevent what is known in bureaucratic parlance and among official newsreaders as "an untoward incident". For their part, the Hinduttva brigade did what they know best. They tried to achieve their ends by intimidation and having failed, quenched their anger by painting vicious slogans all over the college walls overnight. For all of us leftists and unabashed (pseudo)-secularists who by the late 1980’s were beginning to wonder where our fighting spirit had gone to, the meeting signifed the rejuvenation of faltering hopes and aspirations. It was our way of standing up, defying communal politics and saying, "We’re not dead yet!". And despite all that has happened since then, not least of it the passage of my respected friend Dewan Birendranath (may he rest in peace) and the destruction of Babri Masjid, that day still energises me as I know it must invigorate most of those who attended it. We weren’t finished then. And we aren’t finished now.
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