With the release of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar on an interim bail, his return to the campus amidst a rousing reception and his equally rousing and widely televised address to the JNU community, we have now entered a challenging new phase in the ongoing student movement.
On the face of it, the bail granted to Kanhaiya Kumar marks an initial victory for JNU students and the wider sections of the democratic opinion in the country in the face of a police crackdown instigated by absurd charges of sedition on students and teachers, and the open and concerted thuggery of the Sangh brigade in court premises and on peaceful protests and assemblies. But the unwarranted remarks made in the High Court order pitting students against soldiers, describing dissent in terms of infection and gangrene and prescribing treatment ranging from antibiotics to amputation clearly tell us more about the dominant ideological environment than principles of constitutional law and justice.
With the judiciary speaking in such vicious terms, the RSS goon brigade naturally feels emboldened to carry on with its open display of terror and thuggery. A BJP youth leader in UP has offered a Rs 5 lakh bounty for whoever chops off Kanhaiya’s tongue while another has put up posters right in the heart of Lutyen’s Delhi announcing a bigger reward for bumping him off. And according to the Delhi police directed by the Union Home Ministry, this open death threat is only a matter of ‘defacement of property’ just as Bassi had earlier trivialised the assault in Patiala House premises as an incident of ‘jostling’.
Against these odds, it is inspiring to see the undiminished resolve of the JNU community to carry on the battle for justice. Unconditional acquittal of all the arrested students, withdrawal of sedition charges on all students and restoration of full rights of all the eight students who have been debarred from academic activities in JNU are the three core demands of students and teachers. The chief proctor of the university has resigned in protest against the bureaucratic high-handedness of the authorities and injustice meted out to the students, and the teachers’ association has called for removal of the registrar who has been instrumental in plotting and spearheading the ongoing assault on campus democracy in JNU.
Thanks to the bold resistance of the JNU community and the widespread solidarity it evoked across the country, the BJP smear campaign and witch-hunt against JNU students has been thoroughly exposed. Yet, far from accepting defeat and mending its ways, the Sangh-BJP camp is claiming victory in the ‘ideological war’ over JNU! With elections already declared in five states, BJP leaders have launched a vicious and vitriolic countrywide campaign against the alleged anti-nationalism of the Left. Having won the first round of the JNU battle against the saffron witch-hunt, the Left must now accept this larger challenge and combat the BJP’s communal-fascist pseudo-nationalist campaign with the spirit of progressive democratic patriotism and the unity of people’s struggles for social transformation and greater rights.
The JNU struggle has emerged as a rallying point for students and intelligentsia across the country. The slogan of ‘Azaadi’ or freedom raised so passionately by JNU students has struck a chord with a whole range of ongoing struggles for rights and justice. The Modi government is pursuing an aggressive agenda of subjecting the resources of the country to predatory corporate plunder. It wants unrestricted corporate control over land and water, forests and minerals, labour power and bank finance. The universities and other institutions of learning and research are now being sought to be subordinated to this design, and the culture of debate and dissent is being systematically subverted to promote RSS-dictated intellectual enslavement and ideological regimentation. The call of freedom is today resonating against this stifling atmosphere of fear and corporate-communal aggression.
The convergence of the struggles for justice for Rohith Vemula and rights of JNU students has been a source of great strength for both these struggles. Along with the demand for scrapping of the sedition law a key demand of the present struggle is enactment of a new legislation named after Rohith to stop social discrimination in educational institutions. Beyond the immediate demands of the struggles, the ongoing churning has also highlighted the need for, and potential of, reinvoking the ideas and messages of Bhagat Singh and Babasaheb Ambedkar as the defining spirit of the agenda of patriotism, social justice and democracy.
Against every RSS attempt to define Indian nationalism on the basis of Hindu majoritarianism and corporate subjugation, Bhagat Singh will continue to inspire today’s youth to fight for a united people’s India, free from exploitation and oppression. Against every RSS attempt to appropriate Ambedkar as the ‘modern Manu’ and resurrect Manuwadi domination subverting the constitutional values of liberty, equality and fraternity, Ambedkar will continue to guide our forward march towards ‘annihilation of castes’ and attainment of real equality, justice and freedom by defeating the forces and structures of social discrimination, injustice and oppression. In the coming weeks, as we remember Bhagat Singh on his 85th martyrdom anniversary and celebrate the 125th anniversary of Ambedkar’s birth, let us arm ourselves with the ideas and inspiration of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar to give a resounding rebuff to the pseudo-nationalist offensive of the Sangh-BJP brigade.
