Uddhav targets BJP government over Hardik, Kanhaiya

In a veiled attack on the Narendra Modi government, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said instead of guiding the youth in the right direction, it has “given birth” to Rohith Vemula, Hardik Patel and Kanhaiya Kumar, the youth figures who have been in news in the last few months.

"India has a big population of youths. Instead of giving them proper guidance and directions, the government is misleading them," he said and cited the examples of Rohit Vemula (Dalit scholar who committed suicide in Hyderabad University), Hardik Patel (Gujarat Patel quota stir leader who is in jail) and JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar (who has been charged with sedition).

He, however, did not name BJP or the Modi government.

The Modi government has come under attack over the way it has handled the issues related to these three youths.

When Hardik Patel became popular, he was charged with sedition, and now Kanhaiya Kumar is fighting against the government, Mr. Uddhav said, and asked, “Who gave birth to these youths?”

Youths of the country required proper guidance and direction and it is not wrong to give advice to our friend (BJP) with whom we have an alliance, he told reporters here.

“We will oppose any bifurcation of Maharashtra,” the Sena leader said in the backdrop of ongoing debate on separate Vidarbha.

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Taking back our universities

The Indian government’s authoritarian menace is generated from within a recognisable structure and network: a Prime Minister at its inspirational font with a long and sordid history of winking at his supporters’ violent crimes; a Home Minister ordering a half-cocked police invasion into a place of learning and ideas for which — to the extent that it comprehends them at all — his government has never had any respect; a familiar background of sinister policy-shaping and mobilising organisations that range from the paramilitary to the cultural spheres; and not least its recently energised laureates of goonish intimidation, young Balillas seeking to disrupt any public meeting in universities that expresses dissent or seeks protection for the country’s wide swathe of vulnerable groups: minorities, Dalits, women, and the working poor.

The rise of the ABVP

The last of these, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a nationwide band of seedy tormentors on the country’s campuses, goes back to the late 1940s, formed in part to fight communist influence in institutions of higher learning. Along with the rest of the Hindu Right, their participation in the movement that opposed the Emergency gave them a moral high ground, a high ground that politicians on the then more powerful Centre-Left surrendered because they lay down like doormats as Indira Gandhi and her immediate circle of advisers stamped on them and the liberties we had taken for granted since Independence.

One might think it is ironic that the ABVP, and the Hindu Right more generally, are now mimicking that very authoritarianism and thereby relinquishing the little moral high ground they had secured by their courageous opposition to the Emergency. But in fact there is no irony in this. What their current replication of the authoritarianism of the mid-seventies shows rather is that that opposition was never motivated by the higher ideals that were attributed to them. In other words, they never deserved the high ground they gained, in the first place.

In the last twenty-five years (notably coinciding with the years in which neo-liberal economic policies have been embraced) their numbers have grown enormously on campuses; and since the Bharatiya Janata Party’s recent electoral ascendancy they have paraded this numerical strength in the style of the Balilla in Mussolini’s Italy. These are the visible symptoms of the rise of right-wing nationalism. Someone with more space than I have here should explore the question (whose answer may well lie buried in the parenthesis above) no less relevant in India today than it was in Italy and Germany in the 1930s: what material dislocation, what psychological desolation, what submerged feelings of inferiority, prompt the young to embrace with such aggressive fervour so dark a nationalism as this?

Good and bad nationalism

In today’s Europe, which congratulates itself on having lived down its own dark past, even just the prospect of the electoral success of parties representing that form of nationalism has filled the entire spectrum of mainstream politics with dread, while in our country that form of nationalism has not only electorally triumphed but has become the political mainstream. Yet European governments, not to mention the United States, fawn over our Prime Minister as a hero who has opened up vast vistas of new opportunities. What this says about the victory of elite global economic interests over global political morality should be obvious to any alert political observer.

In the aftermath of recent events, some excellent opinion pieces in newspapers have rightly distinguished between such majoritarian nationalism and the inclusive nationalism of Gandhi and Nehru. But right though that distinction generally is, it is not clear why it is relevant in the immediate context when students are being charged with anti-national behaviour. To point out, in this context, that there has been a good nationalism in our past risks the peril of making it seem that a charge of anti-national might have been appropriate if such a good nationalism (instead of Hindu nationalism) were in place. But such a charge is never appropriate. The very category of ‘anti-national’ behaviour is a political and moral outrage.

It may be thought that, unlike, say, Savarkar’s nationalism an inclusive nationalism such as Gandhi’s and Nehru’s could not, by its very nature, have even conceived the category of ‘anti-national’. That thought, however, harbours a conflation. Inclusiveness and anti-authoritarianism are both good things. But not all good things are the same good thing.

Striking at civil society

In a democratic polity committed to the elementary liberties, no matter which form of nationalism — good or bad — holds sway, any and every person is possessed of the right to ask such questions as: what options do the people of Kashmir have after their suffering over the last three decades, or whether the judicial verdict that sent Afzal Guru to his death was justly made. Even so wise a person as Upendra Baxi in a recent opinion piece in The Indian Express begins a sentence defending liberty of speech by saying, “Shouting slogans that are not demonstrably anti-India, and conducting and joining protest marches…” must be legally protected in our universities. But what we should be asking is: what is this category of ‘anti-India’? This is not a notion that national democracies can countenance at all and remain democracies. The idea of someone being accused in a university in Stockholm of being anti-Sweden is laughable. India today and America (mostly in the early 1950s) are quite possibly the only democracies in the world where such a classification of behaviour has conspicuously surfaced. To allow it to be wielded with the zeal that we are presently witnessing is to be set on a path of nothing less than the destruction of our civil society. The issue of immediate relevance today is not which is the good nationalism, inclusive or majoritarian, but whether you can have a democratic polity at all when the domain of civil society, i.e., the domain of collective political life which lies outside the orbit of the state and within which citizens may reflect upon and criticise state policy, is increasingly diminished by the state’s actions. It is a stark perversion of politics that a state, by wilful economic policy, is everywhere surrendering its sovereignty to global finance capital, while bearing down like a thug on its own people who are, in the end, the basis of that sovereignty.

Resistance from below

I had said earlier that the ABVP and the entire structure and network from within which it functions is silencing a variety of causes that have surfaced on many campuses, causes that seek to protect vulnerable groups such as minorities, Dalits, women, and the working poor. The inference, then, is obvious. It is precisely and only a coalitional mobilisation of these groups that can offer any serious resistance to their assault. The justly iconic status that Kanhaiya Kumar has achieved today is not merely because he has stood up to his own government’s attack on universities but because he eloquently represents these causes — and, above all, he represents them in a mode and mentality that should serve as a lesson to political parties and political leaders in the wider electoral field. What I have in mind by this ‘mode and mentality’ is a point of the utmost significance. When someone like Mr. Kumar raises, for instance, the question of caste, he does so not with the mentality of seeking one or other electoral form of gain for one or other party that claims to represent one or other caste, he does so not as a collective bargainer in a field defined by political careerism and sectarian advantage in which those who come out ahead in the bargaining get co-opted into perpetuating the system of caste oppression, he does so with the quite different mentality of wholesale resistance to the very curse of caste, with a view to seeking nothing less than what Ambedkar called the “annihilation” of caste.

It does nothing to diminish the ameliorating achievements of electoral politics of the last two or three decades in the matter of caste, to observe that this offers something entirely fresh in our public life. It should become our common sense, by which I mean it should be a matter of the habits and reflexes of a humane politics. The young men and women in our universities, who have stood and struggled by Mr. Kumar’s side, represent an exemplary political mentality from which our parties and politicians have much to learn. May they grow in every college and university in every corner of the country and take our universities back.

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Man behind posters against Kanhaiya arrested

After coming across as soft in their stance against a man who announced a bounty on JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar’s head, the Delhi Police finally arrested the accused on Monday.

Adarsh Sharma, who claims to be the president of Poorvanchal Sena, has been booked under several Indian Penal Code sections, including one which is non-bailable.

On Saturday, Sharma had put up posters on the walls of some New Delhi establishments, announcing a reward of Rs. 11 lakh for anyone who would shoot dead Kanhaiya Kumar.

But what drew much ridicule was the subsequent police action in which Sharma was booked only for defacement of property.

But through Sunday and Monday, police added five more sections in the FIR against him, also booking him for suspected forgery. “The SIM card used by him is suspected to have been procured on fake identity proofs,” said a senior police officer.

On Saturday, Sharma has proudly posed in front of media for photographs with the poster in his hands. Speaking to The Hindu, he had said he has only Rs. 550 and Rs. 1,200 in his two bank accounts and had claimed that he would give the Rs. 11 lakh reward by collecting funds from the people of India.

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'JNU’s image has suffered damage, I have to mend it'

In a free-wheeling conversation, JNU student's union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who was released from Tihar jail on Thursday, spoke about his future plans about the student's movements, his experience and take away from the recent controversy.

You spent 22 days in custody. What do you think is your takeaway from the experience?

It is yet to sink in that I am finally out of jail. I am trying to comprehend the entire situation. However, I do realise that a huge damage has been caused to the name of our university ad I have to try to mend it.

Students all over the country are looking up to you as a youth icon, what is your future plan of action for the students’ movement?

I am happy that a large number of students across the country have supported me and the university. I am definitely eager to take the students’ struggle forward.

We have been associated with the FTII struggle, then we associated with the Rohith Vemula movement, demanding justice for Rohith. Now a large number of people are with the “Stand JNU” movement.

This is definitely a new high for the students' movement in the country.

Do you thing student organisations are playing the role of the opposition party in the country, in the way they are taking on the government?

There are two centres of power, one is Parliament and the other is the struggle on the streets. We have to take the struggle from streets to Parliament.

The Left is divided into five fractions in JNU but for your release, they united. What do you have to say about them?

It is the role of not only the Left but everyone to unite for the right cause. Whoever believes to be not only Left but Ambedkarite has come forward. The entire opposition has come forward. The Left will have division, but all those who have come forward, have come forward to safeguard democracy and the Constitution.

Are you going to campaign for a political party or contest elections in the future?

I do not see my life in fragments. I am a student right now and I am doing politics. In future, whatever I do, politics will be a part of my life. I do not want to be a political leader, I want to be a teacher. But once I am in that profession, then also politics will be a part of my life.

Do you think the space for debates on human rights violations and Kashmir issues will cease to exist after the February 9 incident and the controversy surrounding it?

I don't think it will. This is the beauty of JNU. We let all spaces co-exist on campus. People will continue to talk about things that they want to.

Do you think the court order has put you in a tight spot?

I have read the court order in more detail than anyone else who is commenting on it. It just says that I should not commit any anti-national activity, there is no restriction on speech.

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JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar granted 6 months interim bail

Asking Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar to make all efforts within his power to control “anti-national activities” on the campus, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted him interim bail for six months in a sedition case registered against him in connection with a controversial event organised in the university recently.

While releasing him on bail on his furnishing a personal bond of Rs.10,000 and a surety of like amount, the Bench of Justice Pratibha Rani said the student leader would be required to give an undertaking that he would not participate actively or passively in any activity “which may be termed anti-national.”

Though the court gave relief to Mr. Kumar, who has been behind bars for over a fortnight on charges of organising and taking part in an event against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, it observed that he had the right to pursue his political affiliation or ideology “only within the framework of the Constitution.”

“India is a living example of unity in diversity. Freedom of expression enjoyed by every citizen can be subjected to reasonable restrictions under Article 19 (2) of the Constitution. The feelings or protest reflected in the slogans need introspection by the student community,” stated the 23-page order pronounced late on Wednesday evening.

High Court takes exception to slogans

While the Delhi Police, vehemently opposed JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar’s bail plea, had tried to connect him with the raising of “anti-India slogans” during the February 9 event, his counsel and senior advocate Kapil Sibal claimed that the slogans on the university campus were raised by some other people who had their faces covered.

The court took strong exception to the raising of slogans by the students holding posters of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat, saying they enjoyed freedom “in the comfort of university campus” without realising that soldiers were defending the nation’s boundaries at the highest altitude of the world, where they may not be able to withstand the weather conditions even for an hour.

“The kind of slogans raised may have a demoralising effect on the families of those martyrs who returned home in coffins draped in the Tricolour,” said the Delhi High Court Bench of Justice Pratibha Rani, apparently in reference to the recent tragedy at Siachen Glacier and the terror attack at the Pathankot airbase.

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Two of seven videos manipulated, finds forensic probe report

The forensic probe of a set of video clippings of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) event ordered by the Delhi government has found that the two videos were “manipulated” where voices of persons not present in the clips were added.

Out of the seven videos sent by the Delhi government to the Hyderabad-based Truth Labs, two have been found to be tampered with while the rest were authentic, sources said.

“In the manipulated clips, videos have been edited and voices have been added. The main report, with a supplementary, has been submitted to the Delhi government,” an official said.

The Arvind Kejriwal led-government had on February 13 ordered a magisterial inquiry into the alleged raising of anti-national slogans on the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s campus on February 9.

Earlier, a video showing raising of anti-India slogans allegedly by outsiders at the event had given a fresh twist to the case. In the video, the youths, whose faces were covered, could be seen raising slogans against India.

Several videos of the event have surfaced since the controversy broke out leading to the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition, triggering widespread protests.

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Is India at an inflection point?

The first two decades of the 21st century have witnessed a great deal of unrest and turbulence in several countries across the globe, notably in West Asia. India was spared the kind of protests that marked the “Arab Awakening”, though it did confront a number of disparate protests, which cumulatively reflected a high level of discontent. Individual incidents had even then begun to spark off violent reactions.

However, it is the metastasising nature of recent agitations and protests, involving almost every segment of the population, students, peasants and the disaffected — alongside the persistent provocation from Pakistan — which is resulting in new paradigms of thought and behaviour. Whether they relate to terrorist attacks by Pakistan-based outfits such as the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, agitations based on identity, ideology, idea-logy politics, human values and dignity, or unstructured movements dictated by rage or other considerations, they all involve a level of public mobilisation and spectacle different from what had been seen in the past.

Need for new strategies

It is evident that we have entered a new era but are probably not yet aware of its implications. They cannot, hence, be dealt with in the same manner as in the past, or by employing antiquated methods and resorting to shopworn rhetoric. Understanding the true meaning of real-time information gleaned from “data-in-motion” (such as phone calls or chat services) or from access to “data-at-rest” (text messages and videos stored in computers and cell phones) is critically important today.

For instance, almost fortnightly, or at shorter intervals, Pakistan-based terrorist outfits are carrying out assaults with still greater military precision than previously, inflicting greater casualties among both civilians and armed force personnel, all the while holding up the country to ridicule as the Indian Establishment seeks opportunities to revive anti-terror talks. Gurdaspur, Pathankot and now Pampore are hardly isolated incidents and reflect elements of a grand strategy. Only the most myopic of leaders can fail to see the writing on the wall and heed the message coming out of Pakistan. A nation fully conversant with what is taking place can hardly be misled into ignoring the truth and reality.

At another level, India is internally undergoing a baptism through fire. This has been brought on by a conflict between extremes — the politics of the Right Wing and the Left Wing; a confrontation between anti-national and irredentist elements on the one hand, and so called nationalist and identity-based groups on the other; and increasing militancy on the part of the so-called excluded and marginalised segments in pursuit of their rights. The “quota agitation” by the Jat community in Haryana exemplifies the dangers inherent in the increasing stratification of Indian society.

Following the Patidars in Gujarat and the Jats in Haryana, the Marathas in Maharashtra and the Rajputs in Rajasthan are threatening to agitate. In almost every State across the country, several among the more “backward” are about to throw their hat into the ring seeking among the Other Backward Class quotas. Finally the worst fears about the end result of the Mandal Commission recommendations appear to be coming true.

The Centre’s succumbing to the violence perpetuated by Haryana Jats could not have come at a more inopportune moment. The ineptitude displayed in handling the agitation, and the spectacle of the Centre dispatching several Army columns to quell a law and order situation in an hinterland State, tends to evoke comparisons with the “Arab Spring”.

Memories of 1968

The question as to whether India is today at an inflection point is, however, more relevant in the context of the present unrest among students of the nation’s prestigious universities. Equating the students’ unrest in Jawaharlal Nehru University and Hyderabad and Jadavpur Universities and in several of the Indian Institutes of Technology with the Paris and Nanterre students’ uprising in 1968 may sound farfetched, but there are some eerie similarities. In both cases, agitating students have used metaphors to demonstrate their opposition to the existing order. Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh were names chosen by the Paris and Nanterre students to ventilate their anger against the Fifth Republic, knowing full well that it would anger the authorities.

In current agitations across Indian universities, the names Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon mean little to most students, but they are intended to be symbols of opposition to the Establishment. Anti-national rhetoric is often the fuel that feeds demonstrations against the existing order of things. Today, the Left in India has no icon around whom they can rally students. They have, hence, chosen to join forces with other anti-Establishment groups, for whom the more outrageous the claim, the more likely it is to rile those in authority. This has little to do with “insiders” and “outsiders”.

Building a just society

It is vitally important for the authorities, hence, to discern the real meaning behind many of the actions taking place in our universities and avoid any overreaction. “Building a just society by just means” — a quote from former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru — has become crucially important in many campuses at this juncture. Nothing could be more poignant in this respect than the tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula, the Hyderabad Central University PhD student, who in his suicide note blamed his birth as “a fatal accident”. It gave an impression of the prevalence of a “dark state” mindset among those who exercise power and authority.

What cannot be ignored is that with ubiquitous access to interconnected mobile devices and other advanced communication systems, events are getting transformed in a way that could hardly be envisaged even a couple of years ago. In this milieu, failure to anticipate the intensity of anger that prevails on a particular occasion, judge the unintended consequences of a growing groundswell of protest against an incident that has captured public imagination and recognise that the diffusion of power between the state on the one hand, and people on the streets or students in campuses on the other, has become far more consequential than at any time previously — and it can have grave consequences.

What is tragic is that in an increasingly acrimonious and polarised atmosphere, political elements of all hues are by their actions further aggravating the situation. The public discourse has thus become that much more acrimonious and polarised. The Prime Minister’s statement about “conspiracies” directed against him and his government hardly helps. It only brings back memories of other Indian Prime Ministers placed in difficult situations coming up with similar conspiracy theories. Employing the provision for sedition in JNU, instead of taking time out to address social cohesion and sustain the social compact that India has striven to maintain since Independence, has been a blunder, widening the gulf between different segments of society. What is most needed today is an activist state that is focussed on preserving social cohesion and a sense of optimism to protect and enlarge the dignity of every human.

At this critical juncture, it is unfortunate that the vice chancellors of central universities have hardly covered themselves with glory. Most universities today are guilty of the charge that they are out of touch with Young India, even as student activism has reached a tipping point. Vice chancellors find themselves inadequately equipped to grapple with problems facing their universities such as social exclusion, identity conflicts, the subaltern and minority syndrome, unchecked dissent, etc. Most also lack the authority (and personality) to not only deal with students’ protests, but even determine when to call for outside support, including the police, before the situation goes out of control.

Finally, what is least required at this moment is for students across universities to be lectured on the virtues of nationalism from all and sundry. What is specifically needed are methods to deal with the current situation so as to prevent it from getting out of hand. Leaving matters to be dealt with by the police after the horse has bolted, and then blame the police for inadequacy is, however, neither a method nor the means.

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JNU student leader Kanhaiya thrashed in court

Men dressed in the black robes of lawyers held court proceedings to ransom in the heart of the National Capital on Wednesday.

In a shocking sequel to the incidents of February 15 in the Patiala House courts complex, violence was unleashed barely moments before a hearing on sedition charges against JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was to start at 2 p.m.

The Delhi Police again filled the role of a “silent spectator” as attackers defied the Supreme Court’s order for restricted entry to the trial court complex, bashed up Mr. Kumar en route to his court hearing and hurled the choicest abuse, gravel and a jagged end of a flowerpot piece at a six-member team of senior advocates, including Kapil Sibal, hand-picked by the Supreme Court to verify and report back on the ground situation in the court complex.

The morning saw a tense hearing during which politics and nationalist passions sidelined legal arguments before a Supreme Court Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre.

The court was hearing a petition filed by JNU alumnus N.D. Jayaprakash, seeking “free and fair access to justice” to Mr. Kumar and condemning the February 15 violence on and outside the Patiala House premises.

The surcharged atmosphere in the Supreme Court hall shot up a few notches when a lawyer shouted Vande Mataram — a slogan which found an echo in the court complex later in the afternoon — from the rear as another asked the Bench if the expectation was to “keep quiet if somebody attacked our motherland.”

“We are all patriots here. If somebody attacked the motherland, do you take the law into your own hands? Moderation is a forgotten word in all spheres of life today,” Justice Chelameswar shot back.

The hearing ended with the Bench restricting entry to the trial courtroom only to lawyers appearing in the sedition case, five journalists, four immediate family members of Mr. Kumar or one JNU faculty member or student each — all certified by the Delhi High Court Registrar-General to be present.

Repeat of Monday’s violence

Wednesday saw a shocking sequel to the violence unleashed on February 15 in the Patiala House court complex barely moments before a judicial hearing on sedition charges against JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was to start at 2 p.m.

On February 15, lack of seats for lawyers was said to be one of the reasons which led to verbal exchanges and altercations inside the court room before slipping into full-fledged violence.

But it took only a few minutes after the Supreme Court hearing for the Delhi Police’s assurances of calm to hit rock bottom. In a rewind of Monday, a group led by a man identified as Vikram Chauhan, who made the headlines for claiming to have organised the February 15 attack on innocent persons in the court complex, climbed the gate of the court complex and barged in, waving the national flag and shouting Vande Mataram. This was minutes before the trial court was to sit.

Magistrate Loveleen Singh, hearing the case, quickly ordered her courtroom to be locked from the inside. Lawyers, journalists and persons authorised by the Supreme Court were ushered into the judges’ chambers as attackers prowled the court complex armed with batons. Senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, a member of the lawyers’ team, later described to the Bench the “tearful” condition of the Magistrate.

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An unrest that has been simmering at JNU for over a year

There is more to the ongoing unrest at the Jawaharlal Nehru University than the reports of anti-India sloganeering that became the grounds on which the police arrested its student body president, Kanhaiya Kumar, on February 12.

According to several student accounts, the first signs of trouble on the campus came when clashes broke out between the left-leaning and right-wing student bodies on October 9, 2014 over a cartoon published in Forward Press magazine. It depicted Goddess Durga in a manner that many religious minded students found “derogatory.”

Forward Press has a reputation of being a magazine that speaks for the Dalits and has a history of triggering intense debates at JNU over a demon in the Hindu mythology named “Mahishasura,” who is killed by Goddess Durga in a good versus evil fight. “A section of leftist Dalit students considers Mahishasura a noble king,” said a member of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union (JNUSU). “They think it’s an upper caste Brahminical construct that Mahishasura was a demon just because he was a king from a tribal area. They [the Dalit students] feel that it smacks of upper caste prejudice against the lower castes and they have often observed Mahishasura’s death as the day of his martyrdom.”

In September 2015, the left-leaning All-India Students Federation (AISF) and the All-India Students Association (AISA) swept the polls, defeating the BJP’s student wing ABVP.

Two months later, a major controversy explodes on the campus, when a student organised a ‘havan,’ lighting a fire in the middle of his hostel room to celebrate his birthday. The hostel warden, Prof. Burton Cleetus, who’s a Christian, asked the student to put out the fire. “The birthday boy along with a group of ABVP activists filed a police complaint against Burton Cleetus. He levelled charges such as sexual harassment, committing atrocities against SC/ST students and hurting religious sentiments against him,” said another JNUSU member, pleading anonymity.

Then a month later, in December 2015, another professor, Arshad Alam, was accused of sexual assault. “The victim was a Hindu and ABVP activists spread the rumour that a Muslim professor pursuing Love Jihad ended up raping a Hindu student. They accused the leftist student parties of being anti-feminist.”

The two consecutive events were soon “exploited” by the ABVP activists, consolidating a lot of support among the female students, said the JNUSU member.

As the controversial Afzal Guru event unfolded on February 9, the JNUSU member said they were surprised to see Home Minister Rajnath Singh condemning it. “Such events have been hosted several times in the past. The government didn’t respond then. Why now?”

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JNU row: Students, journalists attacked in court premises

The Patiala House courts here on Monday witnessed violence as a mob, wearing lawyer’s robe, slapped and kicked supporters of JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar.

The attacks began when Mr. Kumar was scheduled to appear before metropolitan magistrate Loveleen and continued for about 45 minutes during which whoever ran into the mob looking young and carrying a mobile was slapped, kicked and chased away from the premises.

Journalists and students bore the brunt of the violence, while the older men and women were intimidated by the mob. They were seen asking the police to ease out reporters and Mr. Kumar’s supporters. First, the mob charged the atmosphere by shouting ‘Pakistan Murdabad, Bharat Mata ki Jai’. The first victim was a clerk of a lawyer whom they beat up. He escaped, thanks to the intervention of a group of lawyers. Later, the rabble was seen marching around the court premises to thrash any dissenting voices.

This reporter was an eyewitness to the slapping and kicking of two print journalists when they were rushing towards the courtroom to cover the case.

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JNU politics is about ideas and debates, not money, muscle

Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar, son of a poor anganwadi worker from Bihar, has suddenly captured national attention after being charged with “sedition.”

This has also brought the spotlight on the university’s student politics, once considered an ideal model for institutions but now being seen by many on the social media with acute suspicion.

The legal implications of the police crackdown on the campus apart, JNU student politics over the decades has been unique in two ways: its freedom from money and muscle, and its propensity to see ideological debates and dissent as an integral part of politics.

“In how many universities today can children of working class people hope to contest and win an election without money being spent or goons being brought in to deter rivals?” a research scholar pursuing PhD in the School of Social Sciences wondered.

JNU politics has a unique character. Campus problems apart, the debates veer around to discussing the strengths and flaws of capitalism, visions of nationalism or the rights of minorities. This culture of debate has not just produced bright leaders from the left camp like Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat, but also ideologically helped the Hindutva camp.

The BJP’s journals and publications department convenor Shiv Shakti Bakshi, who was RSS-affiliate ABVP’s JNU unit president more than a decade back, has a PhD from the university. Even the RSS mouthpiece Organiser’s Editor Prafulla Ketkar is from the JNU and has an ABVP background.

The campus heats up politically as October comes, with organisations like AISA, SFI, AISF, ABVP and NSUI deciding their candidates and also their main issues for the campaign.

JNU students form their own election committee, comprising largely apolitical faces, which ensures free and fair polling. In the run-up to it, all candidates have to take part in a public debate.

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