There’s an old saying that goes ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man.’ On March 3, that man was Kanhaiya Kumar. Beaten, ridiculed, insulted and more, Kumar has suddenly emerged from obscurity to be the fiery leader of the Indian youth. His opponent is the might government of India. This is not an easy fight, but then Kanhaiya Kumar is not someone who is easily unnerved. He exudes strength and will not waver quickly. The government should know. They created him.
One month ago, no one had even heard of Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union. There was only buzz about the January death of Rohit Vemula, the victim of a political and castiest vendetta in Hyderabad. Today, Kumar calls Vemula his idol. A million voices cheered. The BJP government, which until now had managed to stifle dissent (allegedly), could only stand by and watch as a young 28-year-old man matched or even surpassed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oratory panache.
Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested by the Delhi Police, after rival students group Akhil Bharatiya Vishva Parishad (ABVP), which is also affiliated to the BJP, complained about anti-India slogans being chanted at an event in the University campus to commemorate the death anniversary of Afzal Guru. Kumar, as the president of the students union, was arrested and charged with sedition. The government intervened on a matter that should have been the jurisdiction of the university. He was put in jail for three weeks, before the courts cleared him of all charges. In the interim, there were daily protest marches by students, the media and other institutions advocated his release, and the country rose up against the ruling government.
There has to be something said about the naivety of the ABVP and others involved in this case. You do not put a student in jail for protesting against the government. He did not threaten to kill or maim anyone. In fact, the videos aired on some television channels that did show his speeches to be inflammatory, were later proven to be doctored. When he was released from jail, one of the first things he did was give a speech, peppered with jibes against his ‘captors’, full of praise for the army, the constables and epitomised by a few simple statements: “We fight for equality. We fight for freedom from poverty and social oppression.” Those words gave weightage to the claims that the government has been stifling dissent, and that factions have been working to oppress minorities and others through the breaking down of civil rights, in the banning of beef for instance. It incited hope.
Kumar is no hero; not yet. He’s not a leader, though he does seem to be born for it. He also comes from a university that is one of the finest in the land, but is also a place that has a dated idealogy. Kumar’s affiliation to the CPI and its communist ideals will restrict him should be decide to fire up the nation’s youth. At the end of the day, he is what he claims to be, the son of a farmer and a hard working mother, and the brother of a soldier. He is the common man, more so that the current Prime Minister. But this common man just hit the BJP where it hurts and they only have themselves to blame.
