IIT Bombay's #Facepalm moment: Asked for Christoper Nolan, got Subramanian Swamy

It was a moment of sheer excitement for many of us when IIT Bombay on 28 October announced that none other than The Dark Knight trilogy director Christopher Nolan was coming to the institution’s annual festival ‘Mood Indigo’. [caption id=“attachment_2024483” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Subramanian Swamy made a lot of controversial statements in IIT Bombay. Reuters[/caption] However, the disappointment was as intense when two days later, IIT Bombay announced that they had made a mistake and Nolan, was after all, not coming to India. Now, IIT Bombay landed itself in yet another controversy when it invited BJP leader Subramanian Swamy to the festival. In his address to the students, Swamy, known for his controversial statements, called former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a circus lion and Congress president Sonia Gandhi a ‘vishkanya’, according to this report in Mumbai Mirror. Swamy did not stop there. He also claimed that Manmohan Singh was incorrectly given credit for India’s financial reforms in 1990s, because it was Swamy himself who was responsible for “25 percent” of the reforms. Swamy also predicted that Sonia Gandhi would be arrested in two months in the National Herald case. The Mumbai Mirror report also said that Swamy had sued the former Deputy Director of IIT Bombay Professor Shevgaonkar for about Rs 75 lakh as his “salary dues”. Because of such fiery and pointed statements made by the BJP leader, a section of students from the institution critcised it for inviting a politician to a college festival, according to Scroll. The report also said that college students are debating whether politicians should be called to college festivals in the first place. This is not the first time a politician has been invited to a college festival. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor was also invited to Malhar, the college festival of St. Xavier’s, Mumbai. “Yes, politicians should be allowed to college events for free exchange of ideas,” Rahul Maganti, a student of IIT Bombay, was quoted by Scroll. “But, it should have at least two divergent views rather than a single member from a political party who is notorious for hate speech.” On the other hand, the organisers of Mood Indigo at IIT Bombay said that students who attended the event were free to disagree with Swamy. “The invite should not be seen as an endorsement of a specific political party or person’s views,” Gunjan Gupta, a third-year student and spokesperson for the organising team told Scroll.