NEW DELHI: A mild uproar over a purported video related to a skit performed at the annual college festival of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) has prompted the Resident Doctors Association of the institute to offer public apology for hurting the “religious sentiments.”
The Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) has issued a public statement “seeking forgiveness” for the act.
The controversial skit was performed during the annual festival that took place on September 27. The character of Sudama, who is depicted as a close friend to Lord Krishna in mythological scriptures, was shown holding “alcohol bottles” and dancing with girls in the skit.
A devotional track are dwarpalo, kanhaiya se keh do, ki dar pe Suadama gareeb aa gaya hai played in the background during that part of the skit, the video showed. Many Twitter users took offence at the video, which was initially posted on the official YouTube channel of the college and later removed.
The RDA said that the video was part of a “satirical comedy” show. It admitted that the performance was demeaning, and disrespectful to religious sentiments. The association reportedly informed the college that the student group that wrote and performed the act has been barred from participating in any cultural event on campus.
The college festival, Synapse, was a four-day event organised by the Residents Doctors Association and Azad Medicos Association, as a joint venture. Given the competitive nature of the event, the script for it was not revealed, which was against the rules of the organising committee, sources said. “As the act depicted in the video was demeaning and unethical, the next day, (September 28), the cultural society, Mahaul Makers, performing it was banned and disqualified from any future activities on the campus,” the RDA said in a statement.
A written apology was also requisitioned and furnished by the group, it added. The RDA said that “secularism” is at the core of values imparted at MAMC. “For 62 years that this college has served the country with excellence in medical care, secularism has been at the core of many values that it imparts. Anything deviating from it is viewed very strictly and discouraged,” it said. “Anything deviating from the above is viewed very strictly and discouraged with utmost vehemence,” it said.