HRD minister Smriti Irani said that the nation
would never tolerate any “insult to Mother India”. It was a reference to the
anti-India slogans that were raised during a protest meeting at Jawaharlal
Nehru University, to mark the third anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru,
convicted of being the mastermind of the Parliament attack in December 2001.
It was a tough statement, no doubt. And it was
bolstered by an equally iron-jawed one from home minister Rajnath Singh: “If
anyone raises anti-India slogans and tries to raise questions on the nation’s
unity and integrity, they will not be spared,” he said.
And right on cue, the police swooped upon JNU,
which has always been a fount of left-wing liberalism, and arrested the
university’s student union president Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition and
criminal conspiracy.
Sedition? Seriously?
I, for once, would never support any move to
idolise a convicted terrorist, much less approve of those who are prone to
anti-India diatribes. But to arrest a university student leader, whose
involvement in the controversial sloganeering is far from proven, on that
charge is an outrageous over-reaction. Under Section 124a of the Indian Penal
Code, one is guilty of sedition if one conspires to overthrow the Constitution
and makes speeches that are an incitement to violence. Hence slapping the
sedition rap on Kumar is utterly disproportionate to the alleged “crime”, and
makes the state look irrational and paranoid
In truth, Kumar’s arrest evokes a chilling déjà
vu. Just a month ago Hyderabad Central University student Rohith Vemula had
committed suicide after he and four other students were systematically
targeted, and then suspended. The university’s Ambedkar Study Association, of
which Vemula was a prominent leader, had organised a protest last August after
Yakub Memon was hanged for his involvement in the1993 Mumbai blasts. It is
alleged that the HRD ministry sought action against Vemula and others after BJP
MP Bandaru Dattatreya wrote to Smriti Irani.
Significantly, both at JNU and in Hyderabad,
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the youth wing of the RSS, had
clashed with protesters, who were on the other side of the ideological divide,
adroitly turning this into a nationalism-at-stake cause celebre, which of
course lends credence to the charge that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar are
using hyper nationalism as a stick to beat their ideological opponents into
silence and oblivion.
The point is that dissent has space in our body
polity. A difference of opinion, no matter how shocking or odious to some,
cannot be muzzled on the pretext of nationalism. If anti-India slogans were
shouted at that meeting, it is wrong according to me and to you too perhaps. Our
Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression within reasonable
limits, and slogans at a student meet albeit ill-judged and volatile, can
hardly be deemed to have breached those limits.
Besides, it is upto the university authorities to
carry out disciplinary action, if any, against students who may have violated
the rules and regulations of the institution. JNU has already barred eight
other students from academic activities pending a probe. Why then did the
police have to jump the gun and take the student union president into custody?
Is it any wonder that students and many teachers feel that this is just a
“witch-hunt” on the part of ABVP (backed by the state) to nail Kumar, who is a
member of the leftist student body, AISF?
It has been pointed out that the last time a
JNUSU president was arrested was during the Emergency. If that move was a
display of noxious authoritarianism, how is this different?
A place of higher learning profits from a ferment
of ideas — radical or run-of-the-mill, sacred or profane, right wing or left
wing, revolutionary or not so. It is a crucible of pluralism, the smithy where
our tolerance for each other’s views is forged. Besides, it is in the nature of
youth to defy the establishment, to go against the grain. Protesting any form
of injustice — real or perceived — comes naturally to them. Some may go too
far, some may push the boundaries only so much; some ideals may be flawed and
some utterly stellar, but this is the time of life when one tends to fight the
most fiercely for them.
A university is the last place where the state
machinery should go in with all guns blazing, trying to punish radicalism,
trying to stamp out this or that idea. You do that and you kill the spirit of
the institution. You do that and you’re only a few steps away from a Tiananmen
Square.
Our honorable HRD minister would do well to
remember that “insult” to Mother India happens not just when a few odd students
let off a few anti-India shouts. The insult rings loudest when the “idea” of
India is bruised and violated, when men are lynched for their alleged food
habits, when an African girl is thrashed for simply being an African, when
politicians routinely make anti-women and rape-friendly remarks, when women are
raped, a slothful and ponderous, criminal justice system takes decades to
punish the guilty.
By all means let us pledge not to tolerate
insults to Mother India. But let that effort not be selective. Let it not be
confined simply to throwing one’s weight around in academia.
Abhishek Mukherjee
( PG MEDIA 2015-2017)
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