One of India’s revered temples of advanced learning became a ‘scene of crime’ last week. New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is home to not only some of the finest academic centres of India and the world, but also a laboratory where ideas - not just ideologies - are discussed, debated and whetted in an intellectually-challenging environment. Unfortunately, since last week, it is being discussed on TV screens and in drawing rooms as a place which plays host to anti-India (or even ‘pro-Pakistan’) ideas. It did and it did not. Here’s how.
A left-leaning students’ group, the Democratic Students Union, had sought permission from the JNU authorities to hold a “cultural programme” on Kashmir for poetry recitation under the title “A Country Without A Post Office”, inspired by the famous Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali. It turned out that posters advertising the event detailed that the event was actually “in solidarity with the judicial killings of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat”. This enraged the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), as Guru was pronounced a terrorist by the State for the 2001 Parliament attack and hanged to death in 2013; and Bhat in 1984 for having co-founded the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. Both have been pronounced enemies of the state and hence for their execution to be termed as a “judicial killing”, many feathers in India are bound to be ruffled. The ABVP brought this to the notice of the university administration, and the permission (actually a No-Objection Certificate) to hold the aforementioned “cultural programme” was withdrawn hours before its scheduled time- nothing patently wrong with that, because there must be no variation between paperwork and reality. However, DSU went on with their plans, and the event - clearly not cultural or poetic in any way - took place. They came, they spoke and dispersed. Good night.
You are either "national" or "anti-national" in today's India
The morning after wasn’t good for anyone - inside the campus or outside.
A member of parliament from the BJP complained to the police about the inflammatory nature of the event. Simultaneously, as if by design, two videos of the DSU event had gone viral on social media. Trouble knocked at JNU’s doors.
One video showed a group of students led by Umar Khalid, Ph.D scholar at JNU chanting slogans that are bound to offend anyone who doesn’t love to hate India. “Bharat tere tukrhe honge, Insha’Allah” (Godwillingly, India shall disintegrate), “Bharat ki barbadi tak jung rahegi” (war will be waged till India’s destruction) and “Har ghar se Afzal niklega, tum kitne Afzal maroge” (every household will produce an Afzal, how many will you execute), are just the tip of the of a rather heated iceberg. Interestingly, neither Khalid, nor most of his fellow activists are Kashmiri. But that’s the spirit of JNU, where geography doesn’t define ideology. “Free Tibet” slogans and posters are not uncommon despite a feeble representation of Tibetans. Khalid, because of his undeniably anti-India stance, hasn’t mustered much support and is since absconding after appearing on a couple of TV news debates.
The other video is that of Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the JNU Students Union. Kumar also delivered a speech on February 9 but his standpoint was diametrically opposite Khalid’s. He spoke against the prevailing caste hegemony in India, against imperialism, against inequality and state-sponsored entitlements. He went on to criticise in unequivocal terms the slogans chanted by Khalid and his accomplices wishing disintegration or destruction upon India and the emergence of people like Guru on the scene from every household. All was okay. Real trouble arose for Kumar when he lambasted the ABVP, BJP and its ideological compass, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) for their views on rather personal ideological constructs such as “nationalism”. On a side note, nationalism has become a much-abused word in India today. A majority of the country can’t distinguish between jingoism and patriotism. For them, the mutated concept of “nationalism”, which is neither here nor there, shines as a half-baked, half-literate guiding light. You are either “national” or “anti-national” in today’s India. “Indianness” is a now binary construct.
Kumar’s speech was laced with critique along the same lines. And that irked the RSS, BJP, ABVP - in that order. The MP’s police complaint resulted in the police seeking permission from JNU to take the matter in their own hands. Permission was given. Enter the police. Never in the history of JNU had that happened, while sloganeering of all hues and colours has always been a part of its robust democratic and academic climate. Kumar and others were picked up from the university and taken into police custody. The matter is sub-judice and Kumar awaits his fate sitting in Asia’s largest jail at Tihar in New Delhi. A full-fledged side story is the roughing up of the journalists who went to cover this trial and the JNU students who went to witness it, by jingoistic goons who align with the BJP/RSS/ABVP.
Some JNU students' solidarity with Afzal Guru did not go down well with the Right
Safdar Aziz, pursuing his M.Phil in Peace Studies has been in JNU since the last two years, but had never heard of Kumar until very recently when he was campaigning for the JNU Students Union elections. “Kanhaiya bahot shaant larhka hai” (Kanhaiya is a very calm boy), said Aziz, who was witness to Kumar’s speech. I got the same impression about him from not only other students at JNU but also some professors whom I spoke with.
This is the fact file of the JNU saga. Now the analysis.
No lover of India approves of anti-India slogans. Every sensible and sensitive Indian at heart unquestionably loves and owns India. Those wishing destruction, more Afzal Gurus and Maqbool Bhats on India are less than a sliver of this population of 1.25 billion. They don’t have it in them to destabilise or threaten India. India has only grown stronger over the years and every government that takes charge reinforces and promotes this growth from strength to strength. However, the state must practice tolerance. Tolerance towards dissent, towards criticism, towards rivals. What it must never tolerate is tangible evidence against a person/entity weakening its several dimensions. The BJP-run government has exposed its paranoia instigated by immature ABVP activists who behaved like a rich school kid who complains against his/her classmate who is poor but more popular in class. And the class teacher, intimidated by the rich kid’s influential father - who has influence over the school principal - punishes the poor but popular kid.
The BJP-run government has exposed its paranoia, instigated by immature ABVP activists
Professor Happymon Jacob, who teaches National Security and Nuclear Disarmament at JNU, was present on campus as the events unfolded. Jacob and many of his colleagues in the JNU Teachers Association (JNUTA) feel Kumar’s arrest has “no legal, constitutional or moral basis”. While most people who have examined the merits of Kumar’s case tend to agree with him, some like Professor Dhananjay Singh, who teaches English, feel that either you have it in you or you don’t. Nationalism, that is. If one were to breakdown that argument riddled with holes, all you make of it is that either you follow RSS/BJP/ABVP ideology or you don’t.
The JNUTA is mulling defamation suits against the Delhi Police for arresting students based on evidence prima facie instead of substantial which led to their rustication and also against some media houses that pronounced them “anti-national”.
ABVP demonstrators in support of the government's actions - protesting against the JNU students
While the jury is out on Kumar’s innocence and till Khalid musters the courage to come out of hiding, a new twist to the tale has emerged as I write. A leading TV news network has apparently found that Kumar’s video was superimposed with Khalid& Co’s audio and the doctored video clip was being circulated to wean Kumar off the increasing support and sympathy he has been gathering since being sent to Tihar jail. If this doctoring is proved right, Kumar will become a bigger hero than he had already become. I’m so tempted to hum a popular song of my childhood:
Suit-boot mein aaya Kanhaiya, band bajane ko,
Naye geet pe naach nachaane, naye zamane ko...
(Suited and booted came Kanhaiya, to stir things up
To make a new world dance to new songs)
Ruchika Talwar is a journalist based in India. She has worked with various print and broadcast media
