JNU Crackdown

A strain of paranoia that has been living in an echo chamber for years is now suddenly and violently playing out across the nation — in its campuses and offices, in its villages and cities.

And to feed its insatiable hunger to browbeat, harm and destroy — both lives and institutions — it is forever prowling for victims, many of them unsuspecting, innocent. A poor man in Dadri whose kitchen didn’t have forbidden meat will be a constant reminder of that.

The latest target, JNU, and its student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, the son of a father who is paralysed and a mother who earns Rs 4000 a month, are the latest in a long and rapidly growing list of vulnerable preys to catch the monster’s attention.

So what does this beast, that feels “democracy” gives it legitimacy, want? It demands conformity. And it will have it at any cost. It will first raise red flags and then take recourse to words like culture, history, nationalism, faith, to achieve its purpose, which is, basically, to turn India into a textbook Hindu rashtra. It’s a different matter that no one has a clear idea of what or who is a Hindu, which gods he should be worshipping, which animals and vegetables he should be eating?

In all this, the blind march towards a goal that is both untenable and unachievable — India is just too diverse to nestle in the arms of such strident monolithism — there is a deep irony that is as stark as the savagery that is being unleashed. And it is that we are, for all our economic might, size and the sheer number of us, a deeply insecure nation.

We cannot take any criticism of the ‘country’ — which sometimes strangely gets interchangeable with religion, language, civilisation — and we are unable to tolerate any questions seeking clarity on contentions that are often as outlandish as they are unfounded (Flying chariots? What about trains that are five days late in this day and age? The world’s fastest growing economy? What about the millions that live on less than a dollar a day? Intellectual superpower? What about the growing mass of uneducated, illiterate people?)

The best way to silence citizens is, of course, to invoke the holy cow of nationalism. As if the other cow, equally holy, hasn’t wreaked enough havoc. We are a long way off from countries that allow its men and women to burn their national flag as a form of protest. Neither do we have such lofty ideals in mind. In India, the surest ploy to turn a perfectly good and honest citizen into a pariah continues to be to brand him or her anti-national. There’s no chance for a person after that. In a country that was subjugated by various powers for hundreds of years, it’s important for everyone to be seen loving the nation and professing utmost confidence in it because it has triumphed over such injustices of history. Bharat mata and gau mata. Worship both or perish.

It was ridiculous that some TV channels repeatedly mentioned the death of Hanumanthappa in Siachen to ask, in a cringe-inducing moment, if the Indian soldier’s sacrifice had gone in vain. The tragedy in the icy heights was juxtaposed to the agitation in JNU, essentially pitching the patriot against the traitor.

So what did Kanhaiya do that could have destabilised India, threatened its  very existence? What threshold did he cross that made men frothing at the mouths leap at a bunch of unarmed and harmless students gathered at a Delhi court, pummelling them and throwing them to the ground? For a moment, believe that he and some other students did say ‘Hindustan murdabad’ and raised Pakistan flags. Can a glorious India that has a fan in Zuckerberg and Obama, in France and Japan, that aspires to sit at the top tables of the world, that thinks the next decade, the next century is for it to own, that doesn’t tire of telling the world that it is getting richer faster than China not take a raucous, perhaps even riotous, protest by a bunch of youngsters?

As India in its present avatar goes about persecuting people — minorities, artists, students, writers, anyone that doesn’t fall in line or nods to its idea of patriotism and nationalism, enemy and friend, good and bad — it has to understand that sooner or later it will be asked: Can you rule by fear? Or maybe a more pointed, poignant: What, exactly, are you so afraid of?

The JNU incident exposes not the anti-nationals lurking in our midst. It exposes us for what the country has become today — an angry, insecure nation.

Govt tries to douse JNU fire, journalists, teachers join protests

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The government indicated on Tuesday it was willing to discuss a raging political row over a police crackdown at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, but protests continued against right-wing violence and sedition charges leveled on student leaders.

Parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the budget session could discuss “all issues” after Opposition leaders raised concerns over growing campus protests at an all-party meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The government is ready to walk the extra mile,” Naidu said, seeking to douse protests sparked by the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU student union president accused of making a seditious speech on the campus where alleged anti-India slogans were shouted.

At the meeting, finance minister Arun Jaitley defended the police action against the students, offering to show opposition leaders video clippings of “alarming” slogans shouted on the JNU campus, sources said.

When Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the party would never support “anti-national” slogans, Jaitley offered to show a clipping of Rahul Gandhi’s speech telling JNU students that those who suppressed their voices were anti-national.

The government offer came on a day JNU teachers boycotted classes in support of striking students and hundreds of journalists hit the streets to protest Monday’s attack on reporters and teachers by lawyers linked to the BJP outside a Delhi court.

The journalists submitted a memorandum against the violence to the Chief Justice of India. Also, the Supreme Court will hear a plea against the attack on reporters on Wednesday, amid an outpouring of support for JNU from academics from around 400 foreign universities, including Harvard and Yale.

The police haven’t arrested anyone for beating up the journalists, despite cameras capturing Delhi BJP legislator OP Sharma hitting a CPI leader. Earlier in the day, the Delhi high court dismissed a petition seeking a National Investigation Agency probe into the sedition charges, saying it was premature.

The budget session is under danger of being overshadowed by rising political bitterness over the police’s and government’s handling of the JNU crisis that opposition leaders say muzzles free speech. The government wants to push through reforms such as a goods and services tax.

“RSS people are being appointed as vice-chancellors in universities and reputed institutes. They are trying to suppress the voice of the youth -- be it in JNU, in Hyderabad, Lucknow and other places,” Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said.

The journalists also submitted a memorandum to home minister Rajnath Singh, urging accountability of Delhi Police, who allegedly watched while the assault took place.

“As there were CCTV cameras where the incident of assault must have been recorded, we demand the perpetrators of the assault be brought to book at the earliest,” the statement said.

They also criticised city police commissioner BS Bassi for describing the incident as a “minor scuffle”.

The striking students are ranged against supporters of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the group that first filed the sedition complaint, saying it was defending the country’s honour against “anti-national” elements.

Outside the JNU campus, protesters from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal staged violent demonstrations, carrying saffron flags and demanding the shutdown of the “anti-national” JNU administration.

“We will not allow any anti-national activity,” said Kuldeep Kumar Sharma, 55. “The students are hiding behind those four walls. They should come out and face the nation.”

Keywords : Afzal Guru, JNU issue, sedition, Kanhaiya Kumar