Here’s what happened – masked ABVP members invaded the campus with lathis and rods and launched a murderous attack on the students of JNU. Even though the mainstream media conveniently called it clashes between ABVP and JNUSU, images from JNU appear to tell a completely different story. 

 

 

The attack started at 6:30 in the evening when masked men armed with lathis, rods and sledgehammers entered the campus terrorist style and attacked JNUSU representatives. 

 

They entered hostels (girls hostel included) and smashed furniture and beat up students. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even professors were not spared in the brutal violence. 

During the worst phase of the attack, street lights inside the university were switched off. As people concerned over the violence gathered outside the gates, the mob targeted them too. Yogendra Yadav was heckled and thrown on the ground amidst chants of ‘desh drohi wapas jao’

 

 

Ambulances were attacked as were doctors who had come to help. Here’s what The Hindu reported on this barbaric strategy. There were multiple tweets including this one from the AAP 

 

 

 

Professors who tried to speak to the media were abused with chants of ‘Goli maro salon ko ‘ (shoot them dead)

 

And women were groped and attacked outside the campus 

 

 

As the news spread and students and citizens from across Delhi started converging on the gates, Delhi police provided safe passage to the mob. 

 

Here’s a video tweeted by journalist Rahul Kanwal showing the mob exiting JNU while Delhi Police is watching 

 

 

 

 

 

In multiple accounts, the police stood by and watched, refusing to enter the university without the VC’s permission. This is the same police that entered Jamia a fortnight ago, breaking furnitures, bones and using live ammunition against those who were protesting the CAA. Even outside the gate, the police refused to intervene as political leaders like D Raja, Yogendra Yadav and others were heckled and attacked. 

 

So why did the VC not ask for police intervention ? From how it has reacted, it can be gauged that the university administration facilitated the entire attack. In fact the official JNU administration press release pins the blame on JNUSU and students who have been fighting against the steep increase in JNU fees. JNU’s VC (who students claim is a member of the RSS) came out with a lopsided position even before any enquiry was held. Which begs the question – Did he know what was about to happen ?

 

 

 

Cyclops, the security agency that mans JNU’s gates and the campus was nowhere to be found when the attack happened. Cyclops is comprised of ex-servicemen and there is no reason to believe in their bravery unless of course there were orders to ignore, retreat if not participate. In the past few years, as the new VC and people close to him have sought to completely change the ethos that JNU has been known for, nobody was allowed to enter the university without an i-card. How did more than fifty masked, armed men enter the university ? Why didn’t anybody stop them ?

 

The JNUTA, JNU’s teachers association has in fact directly blamed the JNU administration for the attacks. 

 

 

 

Here it helps to provide a quick background to the violence. Students of JNU have been protesting a 999% hike in the hostel fee that makes it as costly as any other private universities across India. This, the students say was being done to kill the egalitarian nature of public higher education in India. JNU remains one of the best known, affordable and most diverse universities in the country and boasts of firebrand political leaders, insipid union ministers and Nobel laureates amongst its alumni. Yet, the Delhi police has never held back from using its lathi on its students. On November 11 these protests has escalated and the police had used water cannons prompting the human resources ministry constituting a committee to look into students demands. And yet, three months on, not only has the university administration refused to back down, it has also actively encouraged a violent atmosphere on campus. Following this, the JNUSU had given a call for exam boycott and disrupted the semester registrations that had started on Jan 1 and were to end on Jan 5. This attack was planned as a reprisal for the success of the JNU movement, emboldened no doubt by the actions of Delhi Police against Jamia last month and the bullish attitude of the Home Minister (who heads the Delhi police) regarding democratic protests. 

 

 

For a nation still nursing anger on the CAA, NPR , NRC fiasco , the attack triggered waves upon waves of protests. A motely group of people sat in front of Gateway of India in Mumbai and sat there all night long. Even now they are sitting at the gateway.
 

 

 

There were spontaneous protests as far away as the Oxford university

 

 

 

Even union ministers in a ministry terrorised by the Modi-Shah duo spoke up in a rare show of emotions. Perhaps it helped that the attack was on their alma-mater.

 

 

 

 

 

Actors came out strongly against it 

 

as did ace shuttler Jwala Gutta 

 

 

Meanwhile, the warden and senior warden of Sabarmati hostel have resigned 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s what artist Orijit Sen drew to register his protest 

 

In a state where uncles can’t trust their nephews, readers can’t trust their newspapers and nobody trusts Sharad Pawar the catch of the season at Bhaucha Dhakka is a species called ‘MLA’ . Netted with great skill and experienced maneuvering (despite attempts at daylight robbery), each and every one of these MLAs count. Understandably, they are being made to feel important. Party managers turned tour managers are giving them free rides through the city, sometimes twice a day and free lodging at seven star hotels. If this is not Mumbai darshan, what is ? And why not ?On the other side lie temptations that only deputy chief ministers can hope to earn in one five year term. But for Vinod Nikole, there seems to be no respite. Even though he is an MLA in Maharashtra, he is not being invited to stay at Hyatt, nor taken to a resort in Jaipur, nor put on a chartered plane to Delhi, neither being offered cabinet positions. So what went wrong for him ?

 

 

Perhaps this is because no central minister, MLA hunter, political fixer or money bag has ever ventured as far as Dahanu where Vinod Nikole is stationed these days. He was elected from the adivasi dominated Dahanu on a CPI(M) ticket and it is in Dahanu that he is leading a massive rasta roko outside the SDO office demanding immediate relief for farmers whose kharif crops were damaged by unseasonal rainfall. This was apparently only a pit stop in his tour of 7 tehsils in Thane Palghar district to take part in massive rallies organised by the CPI(M) and Kisan Sabha to demand adequate compensation for farmers. 

 

Vinod Nikole is Maharashtra’s poorest MLA and his story  made headlines after his stunning victory. So why isn’t anyone trying to buy Vinod Nikole ? Perhaps because they know that he is not for sale. 

 

 

With each election that the BJP wins, the more invincible it looks. Experts go to town gushing about its grass roots work  (with or without RSS help). Claims fly thick and fast about just how huge BJP’s election machinery is (panna pramukhs et al). Its’ superior strategies are discussed ad infinitum. Liberals, lefties and other ‘anti-nationals’ are pushed further into despondency. Leaders of the Indian National Congress find another reason to polish their post-retirement plans. Is this then the ‘era of Hindutva’, marked by the invincibility of Modi-Shah duo ? Is the battle for a just and equitable India already lost ? While commentators of all hues would like us to believe in such apocalyptic predictions, facts and numbers tell a very different story. 

 

Out of a total of 4120 assembly seats in India (spread across states and UTs) the BJP occupies only 1321 seats. That is, BJP has won only 1/3rd of all Assembly seats. Barring West Bengal, Delhi and Assam where the BJP is expected to make some gains, it has won, lost (in short maxed out) in all other states. Remember, this is at the height of the Modi-Shah Era of Hindutva. Even with the other parties of NDA (475 seats), the number adds up to only 1769 seats (or 43.5% percent of the seats). Congress (833 seats) and Other UPA parties (327) fall short but reasonably so. Far from being ‘Congress-mukt’, numbers seem to indicate a fairly robust democratic system at work. And when seen with smaller, regional parties under ‘Others’ (1026 seats), the BJP does not seem in a commanding position at all. If anything, the power of a combined opposition is clear as daylight. 

 

Assembly Seats	BJP	NDA	Congress	UPA	Others
4120	1321	475	833	327	1026

 

 

Parties	%
BJP	32
NDA	43.6
Congress	20.2
UPA	28.1
Others	24.9

 

So how did the stories of ‘invincibility’ gain currency. As any sportsman knows, half the battle is won by cowing down opponents even before the game begins. The chest thumping propaganda of BJP’s popularity leading to electoral triumphs seems like a well thought out strategy to bully an already dispirited opposition. But look closely and the truth appears even more mind boggling – despite cornering more than 80% of secret political funding (via electoral bonds), elaborate, hyper-local ad campaigns, deploying whatsapp hacking softwares and the contributions of backward bending pillars of democracy, the BJP seems not to have swayed 2 out of 3 Indian Voters. The man (and woman) on the street is not impressed. In fact, He (She), while giving Narendra Modi (and Amit Shah) a wide berth at the center is also firmly keeping a check on BJP’s powers. This is reiterated by him(her) in election after election in states across India. So, is the opposition listening ?