India’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) prides itself as a place where student activism and politics flourish. As a bastion of the nation’s left, it’s known, especially among the intellectual class, as fertile ground for liberal thinking.
But for about a month now, student politics on campus — and the state’s reaction — have put JNU in the crosshairs of a debate that has raged across the entire country about nationalism and freedom of speech. The controversy has exposed fault lines in the pluralistic society around what it means to be a nationalist, and renewed concerns regarding how the Hindu-leaning government of Narendra Modi responds to what it considers dissent.
It all started on February 12, when Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the JNU student union, was arrested by Delhi police under colonial-era sedition charges. Kumar was at a rally commemorating the hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri man convicted of attacking India’s Parliament in 2001 that left 10 people dead. The details around Guru’s hanging remain secretive and controversial.
Kumar was accused of chanting “anti-India” slogans and the rally was dubbed anti-national by ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP government.
The police were reportedly called to the campus by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student organisation loyal to BJP, and the government appointed vice-chancellor of the university. Two other JNU students, who were also charged with sedition, later surrendered to police.
Prior to Kumar’s arrest, Rajnath Singh, the minister responsible for law and order in the country, said he’d asked Delhi police to take “the strongest possible action” against those at the JNU rally. He told reporters that “if anyone raises anti-India slogans, tries to raise questions on country’s unity and integrity, they will not be spared.”
Thousands of students and academics held protests in India in the days following the crackdown, and the world slammed the government’s reaction. Prominent philosophers including Noam Chomsky said Kumar’s arrest “is further evidence of the present government’s deeply authoritarian nature, intolerant of any dissent, setting aside India’s longstanding commitment to toleration and plurality of opinion.”
Within India, the knee-jerk reaction to the rally at JNU has been deeply divisive, dominating parliament and prime time television debates. The government and its supporters faced off against opposition parties and those championing freedom of speech at JNU. The university became a pit-stop for opposition parties in the aftermath of Kumar’s arrest. Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Indian National Congress, addressed students at JNU, offering solidarity, while comparing the Modi government to Hitler. Gandhi was ridiculed by the BJP for supporting “anti-India slogans” and those who reportedly want to break India up.
At Kumar’s court appearance, lawyers allegedly chanting pro-India slogans attacked him, his supporters, JNU students and even journalists for their coverage of the issue. Indian media reports say some journalists were thrashed and threatened by lawyers while police watched the brawl and did not intervene. Hundreds of journalists later marched to India’s Supreme Court to protest the assault and Delhi police’s failure to protect them.
Modi and the BJP have also been accused of polarising voters and creating a narrative around nationalism. While the government pitches its stance as patriotic, several prominent Indians including writers, artists, and Bollywood celebrities have come forward to talk about the growing atmosphere of intolerance in the country.
There were videos circulating on social media and TV channels of Kumar shouting slogans in support of Pakistan from the rally which were also used to polarise the issue. They were later found to be doctored.
“Some people are trying to justify anti-national sloganeering as freedom of expression and such anti-national elements are being portrayed as patriots,” BJP President Amit Shah said at a national convention of the BJP’s youth wing earlier this month.
Amidst the uproar, the government also ordered that all central universities must fly the Indian flag on campus “prominently and proudly” at 207 feet.
Kumar was released on interim bail last week with “the guarantee he won’t participate in any anti-national activities.” He returned to JNU to address supporters and in a fiery speech that’s now gone viral, said “I do not want freedom from India, but freedom in India.”
[The full version of the article was first published by Vice News. You can find the article at the following address: http://tinyurl.com/gvos442]