Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar on Saturday advised the agitating students of the country to return to their classrooms and concentrate on studies while assuring that the prevailing turmoil in the country will subside. The former India captain said this while speaking on the students’ ongoing protests across the country against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 26th Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial Lecture in New Delhi on Saturday, the 70-year-old Gavaskar said, “Main unko kahunga classroom wapas chali jaiye; class mein jaiyein, kyunki wohi aapki main duty hai; ap university gaye, padhai ke liye gaye hai, padhai kariye (I would like to urge them to head back to the classrooms. Head back to the classrooms, that’s where your primary duty lies. You went to the universities to study, so please do that).”

Gavaskar, the first batsman on the planet to score 10,000 international runs, admitted that the country is witnessing a turmoil. He said some of the youngsters are on the streets instead of being in the classrooms and are ending up in hospitals. A massive outrage broke out recently over an attack on students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University that left several students and teachers badly injured.

“The majority are in the classrooms, trying to forge a career and to build and take India forward. We as a nation can go high 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 — that we win when we pull together as one,” Gavaskar said as quoted by The Quint.

Sunil Gavaskar pays tributes to Lal Bahadur Shastri

The former cricketer spoke about late prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, saying he had stood tall when India saw a crisis engulfing it during the 1965 war with Pakistan. “India has overcome many crises’ in the past and it will overcome this one as well. Our minds go back to one such major crisis in 1965 when our neighbours invaded us and got a befitting reply,” he added.

Recently, ace cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle, with whom Gavaskar often shares the commentary box, also opened up on the ongoing crisis in the country and wrote a touching post on Facebook.