By Albert Thyrniang
It’s ‘azadi’ for Kanhaiya Kumar. After 23 days in captivity he was back in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to a rousing welcome late through the night of 3rd March. His ordeal began on February 13 when Delhi Police arrested and most shockingly charged him with sedition for antiIndia slogans on February 9 when students of JNU commemorated the anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru calling it a ‘judicial killing’. The RSS and BJP affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) took offence to the allegedly “antinationals” slogans like “We will fight until India’s destruction.” “Tum kitne Afzal maaroge, har ghar se Afzal niklega!”, ‘India murdabad’, ‘Pakistan zindabad’, etc. Eye witnesses, however, testified that before the start of the meeting, ABVP activists threateningly and intimidatingly raised provocative slogans like ‘Ye Kashmir Hamara hai, saara ka saara hai’ to which some in the crowd responded with, “Hum kya chaahte? Azaadi!”. The over enthusiastic ABVP who claim sole ownership of nationalism and patriotism lodged a police complaint.
Fair and square, the main culprit is the central government. The police acted on instructions of ministers who danced to the tune of the intolerant and anti-left ABVP. Home Minister Rajnath Singh had warned the previous day, “If anyone raises antiIndia slogans and tries to raise question on the nation’s unity and integrity, they will not be spared.” Not to be left behind, HRD minister, Smriti Irani, combatively shouted we “can never tolerate any insult to Mother India”. No one agrees with the antiIndia slogans but do not the authorities know that 124 A of the Indian Penal Code is applied only in cases of ‘incitement’ to ‘violence’, and threat to ‘public disorder’?
Commemorating Afzal Guru’s hanging anniversary is no sedition. Afzal Guru was of course a convicted terrorist for the parliament attack in 2001. After the confirmation by the Supreme Court of the earlier judgments and rejection of the mercy petition by the President of India he was hanged secretly in Delhi’s Defend freedom of expression By Albert Thyrniang Tihar Jail on 9 February 2013. However, warning voices were heard loud and clear. The then Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah warned of long-term implications. His rival party, the PDP termed the killing of the alleged Pakistan trained terrorist a ‘travesty of justice’. Booker Prize winner and rights activist, Arundhati Roy saw Guru’s capital punishment as ‘a stain on India’s democracy’. The former UNO Under Secretary of State, Shashi Tharoor called his hanging “wrong”. The fearless Markandey Katju, former Delhi High Court chief justice, Justice AP Shah severely criticized it. Shah saw Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon’s execution as politically motivated. So court judgments and convictions can also be criticized. Even the term ‘judicial killing’ can also be used. It is not anti-national. For Kashmiris have protested endless number of times with worse anti-India slogans? Why has no one has arrested them? Why single out JNU students?
The worst was to happen in Patiala House Court. At Mr. Kanhaiya’s hearing chaos was created by law breaking lawyers who, along with BJP supporters assaulted Kanhaiya, journalists and other JNU students. An MP of the BJP, Om Prakash Sharma severely thrashed the student leader. The police looked the other way. Later both the lawyers and MP justified their disgraceful action on camera. Ironically the assaulters have gone unpunished while the alleged slogan shouters are charged with the most stringent law. No wonder the accused students have got unparalleled support throughout the country. The mainstream media (with exception of a handful) have defended the right of speech and expression. The messages and posts of ‘We stand with JNU’ dominated social media space. Intellectuals, writers, experts on law, national and international liberty rights organisation, universities across the globe have stood with JNU.
To put JNU students behind bars doctored videos were submitted to the police as flinching evidence. A BJP spokesman was enthusiastically seen showing fake chips for TV channels to condemn Kanhaiya and his friends. Television channels played and replayed the videos to tell the world how anti-national the arrested students were. Anchors outdid each other donning the role of investigators, judge, jury and executioners to denouncing the accused. An aide of the HRD minister is known to be an active sharer of the manipulated videos. Now, presenting fabricated evidence is a crime. Will the police take action? Will they investigate to trace who doctored the videos? Will FIRs be filed? Will the culprit go behind bars?
Kanhaiya and company were supposed to have used the word Azadi in their slogans. According to an online dictionary Azadi is an Iranian word, meaning freedom and liberty. The word is also used in other languages, such as Luri, Pashto, Kurdish, Baluchi, Hindi, Urdu and Kashmiri. TV clips (not the doctored version) show Kanhaiya used the word azadi but to clearly mean freedom from oppressions, corruption, injustice, hunger, discrimination, casteism and in Kanhaiya’s words himself, ‘from the Sanghs’. What is wrong with that? Who is not free to demand freedom from these social diseases? Do not the citizens of this country have the right to claim for freedom from the above maladies?
Another word that was supposedly used was barbaadi. The Hindi term means “destruction”. Evidences point out that Kanhaiya and organisers of the event did not use this word in their speeches. Even if they did there was nothing wrong. India should be ‘destroyed’. The oppressive India, the unjust India, the corrupt India, the hungry India, the ignorant India, the ignorant India, the intolerant India, the India of discrimination, the India of casteism should be destroyed. Should this demand be banned? Should not oppression, injustice, hunger, ignorance, intolerance, discrimination, casteism and more importantly, fanaticism, fundamentalism and communalism in the country be destroyed? What is seditious here? Should the government prohibit its citizens to speak out against these viruses? Even if the government does, even if arrests and intimidation take place we should stand up strong and bold, for this country does not belong to the BJP and its associated political wings. No one wants evils in the country to continue. The right wing outfits might wish to see status quo being perpetuated.
The other anti-India slogans, disgusted and appalling though they might are not necessarily seditious. Even if they are, those who shouted slogans were nonJNU, Kashmiri students. Reports say they are roaming free in Delhi. Why have police not arrested them? It is again reported that the BJP and the PDP made a pact not to arrest or harass any Kashmiri so as not to jeopardize the possibility of forming a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir. What nationalism is the BJP preaching? The prospect of power keeps the government from arresting anti-nationals.
The reason for targeting the wrong persons was to crack down on dissent. There is a plan to scuffle opposing ideologies and thoughts. While the view that the witch hunt against the dissident JNU students is second emergency is off the mark, there is no denying the sight of a fascist, totalitarian and majoritarian tendency. Intolerance is written all over the government’s and self-proclaimed nationalists’ walls. The limbs of the country are affected with a disease. They must be cured fast to save the whole body.
In the JNU row we see groups and individuals wear nationalism and patriotism on their sleeves. They think they only are nationalists. Everyone opposing their ideology is branded as antinational. It is amusing that that those who compromised with nationalism by making a pact with the British not to fight against them; those who refused to hoist the National Flag in their headquarters for over fifty years, those who rejected the tricolour, those who celebrated Gandhi’s assassination by distributing sweets; those who were indicted in riots and violence against minorities should claim rights over nationalism and patriotism. These fringe elements must be fought and defeated