There is a young student languishing in jail, just because he is the head of a group of students that had a difference of opinion with the union government. If one were to reduce the Jawaharlal Nehru University incident into one sentence, that would be apt.
On February 9, former members of a students’ group were denied permission, at the last minute, to hold an event to mark the death anniversary of Afzal Guru, who was convicted
and executed for the attack on Parliament in 2001. The denial was allegedly the work of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), who have ties to the union government. The
event was then supported by various students groups and chanting slogans ensued. Later student leader Kanhaiya Kumar denounced the ABVP for branding them ‘anti-national’
and attacking students. To quote an oft-used term, “All hell
broke loose”.
Today, Kumar languishes in jail, with charges of sedition
slapped against him. His role in
the sloganeering wasn’t even proven,
but his position as head of the
All India Students Federation and
his fiery speech in the late evening
were enough to get the government
to arrest him. Before his arrest, human
resources minister Smriti Irani
stated that ‘insults to Mother India
were not allowed’, home minister
Rajnath Singh also came out
against the students, saying that
anyone who shouts anti-India slogans
or questions the integrity of the nation will not be spared.
This stifling of dissent is not new. Rohit Vemula’s death last
month in Hyderabad was a result of this blatant official action.
Vemula and a few others were suspended after they organized
a protest to the hanging of Yakub Menon in August 2014. The
suspension happened after a union minister wrote to the university
demanding action. Here too, the protestors came up
against members of the ABVP. Colleges and universities are
hotbeds of protest. Young students, with stars in their eyes
and heads filled with righteous ideals, are rebels who protest.
Everyone was a teenager once, which is something that ministers
Irani and Singh seem to have forgotten as they neglected
other important matters of state to come out and make statements
against what could simply be termed as sloganeering.
It is here that people need to understand that these institutions
are also where one teaches students about the freedom
of though and expression, and how to express that to better
the nation. When the central government starts stamping out
the fires of discord in colleges, arresting students for sedition
and even targeting students in such a way that they attempt
suicide, it makes for a sorry state of affairs.
If anything is an ‘insult to Mother India’ it should be Indians
calling other Indians ‘traitors’ simply because they have a different
opinion. Other ‘insults’ could be couples beaten up for
being in love, or men burned because of their choice of meat,
or even perhaps a foreign student beaten up for just being foreign.
These are larger insults to the nation and to Mother India.
India is a strong country that has weathered the storm of
wars, infighting, colonialism and more. A group of students
protesting isn’t going to tear the fabric of the nation, but then
it’s only guilt that spurs the guilty into oppressive action. Perhaps
the government, instead of looking to stamp out dissension
in a democratic nation, should joining the debate and
getting to the bottom of why there is dissent in the first place.
