File image of Sunil Gavaskar
The legendary Sunil Gavaskar on Saturday expressed confidence that India will overcome the current "turmoil" caused by nationwide students' protests just like it had dealt with several critical situations in the past.
In the past few weeks, there had been multiple protests, first at the Jamia Milia University against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and then due to violence by a masked attckers at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
"The country is in turmoil. Some of our youngsters are out on the street when they should be in their classrooms. Some of them are ending up in hospitals for being out on the streets," were Gavaskar's introductory remarks while delivering the 26th Annual Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial Lecture.
The iconic opener Gavaskar believes in the idea of India which will enable the citizens to pull through this hour of crisis.
"The majority of them are still in classrooms trying to forge their career and to build and take India forward. We as a nation can go higher only when we are all together. When each one of us has to be simply Indian, first and foremost. That is what the game taught us.
"We win when we pull together as one. India has overcome many crisis in the past and it will overcome this as well and emerge a stronger nation. We as a nation can go higher only if we are all together," he said.
He also cited the example of 1965 war against Pakistan.
"Our minds go back to one such major crisis in 1965 when our neighbours invaded and got a fitting reply."
Later in the programme, Gavaskar urged the students to go back to the classrooms.
"I will only tell them to go back to the classrooms. That is their main duty. They have gone to the university to study, so please study," he said.
