Bawa is a rising senior in School of Arts and Sciences.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: An Indian American student from Rutgers University was among the several individuals who were honored on Capitol Hill last week for a travelling exhibit that analyzes the US presence in Guantanamo Bay.
Jasmeet Bawa, a rising senior in Rutgers University’s School of Arts and Sciences (SAS), was feted at the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill on June 23, along with students and faculty from 15 universities across the US.
Among the luminaries present to recognize Bawa and her fellow exhibitionists were Congressmen Mark Takano (D-CA), Jim Moran (D-VA), John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), reports Rutgers’ John Chadwick.
“It is really exciting to see the exhibit on Capitol Hill, and to witness how far it has traveled, and the different ways that our work and the work of other students has reached people,” said Bawa, in a statement to the school’s newspaper.
The Guantanamo Bay exhibit documents the entire history of US activity at the controversial site, which has become best known in recent years as a prison for al-Qaeda operatives and other highly dangerous terrorists. The US naval base was acquired during the Spanish-American war of the late 1800s, and was turned into a detention camp for refugees and other detainees.
The exhibit is part of The Guantanamo Public Memoery Project, which was launched by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. The traveling exhibit went from school to school to teach students about Guantanamo, and Bawa – along with Rutgers 2014 graduate Hajar Hasani – led the teaching of that material on their campus.
“Most people associate Guantánamo with just the post-9/11 era, if they associate it with anything at all,” said Bawa.“It’s actually pretty interesting and disappointing at the same time how much we don’t know about it.”
Bawa currently expects to graduate in the spring of 2015,with a B.A. in Cell Biology and Neuroscience, and a minor in Philosophy. She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Anthology, the official literary magazine of Rutgers University, and also works as a private tutor and SAT coach.