Iqbal is a great poet, no doubt about it. He is, as things stand, associated with the struggle for Pakistan, as much as he is for composing the unofficial national anthem of India.
Urdu ought to be promoted vigorously, no doubt about it. It is the other form of Hindi, or Hindi is the other form of Urdu, twins born together, nourished together.
What the JNU people are trying to do, both the Hindus and the Muslims there, is to remind others less sensitive to these things that Urdu deserves to be promoted in its own right, on merit, without condescension, not as a minority's language, but as a true Indian language which is of interest to all Indians.
So, they want to separate Urdu from its seeming ties with Islam, through its association with Iqbal.
They have no problem with celebrating Iqbal separately. They just want Urdu to be celebrated all by itself, no links, no associations with any segment of society, as a language which belongs to all of Indian society.