Full Speech
Kanhaiya Kumar made his first public speech in Mumbai. Almost a full hour. Gripping and Sensitive
Amidst a Galaxy of Other Student Leaders and Speakers: Justice Kolse Patil, Teesta Setalvad, Anand Patwardhan, .Irfan Engineer
Kanhaiya Kumar, Richa Singh, Shehla Rashid, Ajayan Adat, Zuhail K P
Threats and Rumours from the Hindutva brigade attempted a disruption of the programme as no colleges wanted to "allow" Kanhaiya their space for his speech. Finally after last minute dramas, the Adarsh Vidyalaya at Tilaknagar east, Chembur were hosts for this historic occasion
While talking about the various issues facing the nation, he also said, "I have great respect for our PM….but….
Video Recording By Satyen K. Bordoloi
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Text of the Pamphlet
Friends,
Institutional murder of Rohith Vemula and cold-blooded killings of Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, Comrade Govind Pansare, Professor M.M.Kalburgi, Mohsin Sheikh of Pune, Mohammad Akhlaq of Dadri, Mohammad Majloom of Jharkhand along with a twelve year old boy Inayatullah Khan – all these crimes are perpetrated by forces who keep calling themselves as ‘nationalists’! Murderers masquerading as ‘nationalists’ seem to believe their time has come. But Students and youth of India shall not let them pass!
We are the custodians of India’s true nationalism which is derived from the people’s struggle for independence from imperialist Britain and the great rebellions against caste system. The national movement was the quest to create India as a modern republic of equal citizens carrying the legacy of all those struggles for justice and equality spanning many centuries of our past but also freeing ourselves from cultures of cruelty which had also been very much part of India’s history.
It is a fact that economic development of our nation has been left to the mercy of ‘market forces’. But the very same ‘market forces’ have impoverished our people, denied affordable education and employment opportunities to millions of young Indians but also reinforced the shameful hierarchies and systems of discrimination received from pre-modern times. Progressive student-youth movements are offering stiff resistance to policy of commoditization and jobless growth. But, in the endeavor to build an egalitarian India free from pre-modern regimes of inequality and discrimination, we find the combination of ‘market forces’ and ‘Hindurashtra’ politics as the immediate obstacle.
Obviously, Hindurashtra is an ideology of disenfranchising religious minorities. On a daily basis, some or the other leader of Sangh Parivar , BJP – Shivsena ministers and Saamna paper abuse and threaten citizens of India belonging to minority communities under some or other flimsy pretext. The latest one is about ‘Bharat Mata’. How can a Chief Minister threaten anyone to worship the nation as a goddess or else leave India? Bharat Mata Ki Jai is just one of the many slogans that came up during our freedom struggle. For that matter 'Nara-e-Takbeer Allahu Akbar' was also a slogan which inspired anti-British uprising in India like the Khilafat movement and the historic Malabar rebellion. Bhagat Singh and his comrades gave to India the slogan ‘Inquilab Zinabad’. Will Fadnavis be ready to expel from India all those who refuse to shout ‘Inquilab Zindabad’!
Cultivating prejudices against minorities, trapping ordinary citizens in perennial suspicion and hatred along religious lines – all these are part of SanghParivar political project which is to ensure that the rule of capital and corruption continue unchallenged.
Hindutwa is inimical to reason and scientific temper; it stands for subjugating the downtrodden; it is a vision of perpetuating caste system and institutionalizing discrimination. This ideology seeks to trap women in male-dominant traditions and make them objects of everyday violence and exploitation in multiple forms.
Islamic fundamentalism and communal forces operating amongst other religious minorities are also serious obstacles in the path of building a modern secular India. The work of Hindutwa forces help minority communalists to unleash their divisive propaganda. The reverse is equally true: all the rhetoric and politics of Islamic fundamentalism helps Hindutwa forces to mobilize more support. Both the forms of communalism – majority as well as minority – must be rejected emphatically.
But we must not lose sight of the fact that Hindutwa forces have the backing of big business and also government patronage. That is why they feel emboldened to unleash violence at will, crush the voices of reason, destroy premier educational institutions, disallow open-minded debate in universities, criminalize dissent and physically assault courageous student leaders like Richa Singh and Kanhaiya who dare to speak out against the ruling establishment.
But the forces of darkness are not going to be left unchallenged. The wave of protests created by writers and intellectuals has not yet subsided. The institutional murder of Rohith Vemula galvanized the student community. Every institution that the RSS chose to attack – FTII, AU, HCU, JNU, Jadavpur University, Fergusson College – became sites of heroic resistance.
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It is a matter of great pride that students and youth are coming out in a big way to challenge the regimes of discrimination not only in campuses but in the society at large. Sangh Parivar and its government are using all tricks and terror-tactics against the resistance movement. But they are not going to succeed. They cannot suppress the voices of reason, they cannot kill the fight against discrimination, they cannot take away from us the dream of building a nation of equal citizens.
The gathering on 23rd April is going to be an important milestone in this struggle to defend the dream of a true Republic against a lunatic force that has big capital and state power at its disposal. We solicit your whole-hearted support in making it a huge success.
Organisers:
SFI AISF AISA PSF Chhatrabharati AIRSO RYA AIYF DYFI
Photo Credit: Not only was the second floor hall of the Adarsh Vidyalay, where Kanhaiya Kumar spoke, packed to capacity, but special arrangements were made to accommodate supporters on the ground floor where a screen was arranged at the last moment. Photograph: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com