There has been a series of press statements and letters to the President and the Prime Minister by academics asserting the incontrovertible need for academic freedom and bewailing the current assault on it. 

This insistence on academic freedom is of course beyond question.           

But one would like to ask if freedom can be divided into slots, each with its own criteria and limits, to be adjusted according to an obscure scale of ‘public interest’ or if freedom by definition is indivisible. Such a notion appears to strike at the very root of equality, a bedrock principle of democracy.             

At the time some years ago, when the police in Delhi had gone on the rampage and intruded on university campuses to thrash mercilessly students demonstrating on a serious public issue like civil rights or secularism, or had looked the other way when hooded goons entered a campus under their very noses and mounted an attack on targeted victims among students and faculty, a section of academics kept aloof from the widespread outrage sparked by such incidents. 

Their plea had been that such disputes had little to do with the essence of academic freedom. Their conviction was that academic freedom stood for disinterested and dedicated commitment to pure research, away from the hustle and bustle of political or social disputes. Such disputes involved unavoidable bias and academic freedom was according to them basically a painstaking cultivation of impartiality. Learned bodies paid little heed to pleas for a clear position on vital political issues even when such trends were acquiring an alarming character.       

One now finds some of them signing such petitions. This, one hopes, exposes the fallacy of their earlier position on academic freedom,which is still quite widespread.         

Is it at all possible, also desirable, to divide freedom into compartments? Can we, and should we, divide freedom into such hermetic compartments? Such as freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of religion, right of freedom to protest without fear, and of course academic freedom?           

Ultimately they all are but aspects of the freedom of mind. In Tagore’s memorable words, this is the broad domain where ‘the mind is without fear, and the head is held high’. And history has recorded numberless tyrannies that had stumbled on this rock and though thriving for some time had fallen flat never to get back on their feet.           

Democracy is a resolute commitment to this universal freedom to all aspects of life. It is not absolute, but the limits are those that are acknowledged by all without any reservation. If one pleads for freedom in his or her sphere of life, this must come with the unhesitating grant of freedom in other spheres.             

That entails the condition that you do not fail to rally round to any group fighting for freedom in deadly earnest, as when labour are fighting for their hard-earned bargaining rights. Freedom can’t be the comfort-zone where scholars wrestle with their problems without restraint, evincing little interest in the failure of courts to deliver speedy and effective verdicts. The independence of the judiciary does not depend on blemish-less judgments drawing strength from some perennial source of undefiled and impartial judiciary wisdom that prompts totally objective conclusions. When world opinion condemns your lack of freedom, one does not blankly allege some conspiracy to defame the country, because you had partaken of the freedom of UN forums to criticise other countries found wanting in basic freedom.         

The enemies of freedom make no such mistake. They hound out the free spirit out of every such slot by turns, and infiltrate their own henchmen. They turn upside down the whole edifice of freedom and revel in the vacancy as something they can inscribe their writ on.         

There is a struggle for freedom raging everywhere, and one does not enjoy the luxury of watching from the safety of one’s turf hands in pockets.

*The author is a highly respected Assamese intellectual, a literary critic and social-scientist from Assam. Views expressed are the author’s own. 

Other pieces by Dr. Hiren Gohain:

When the State conspires against its Citizens

Politics of Micromanagement

Usual suspects!

The post On academic and other freedoms appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Rohith Vemula gives them the perfect point of departure

 
Delhi is a city that has naturalised caste: a gardener believes he is born to be a gardener; a maid believes she was born to be a maid. Its so called efficiency has something to do with this aspect. Even among academics and students, the understanding and discussions of caste stay at their abstract best. Most of them are well meaning to be concerned about the “upliftment of Dalits” but in the busy-ness of their own professional lives, they really couldn’t do much. The city kept running on the shoulders of the Dalits. Caste was a matter to be encountered only in reservation debates and that was a sort polemics only the political class could go through with.
 
But Rohith Vemula’s one-note altered the caste debates in the country, from asking, “How can discrimination against Dalits be stopped?” or, “How can Dalits be uplifted” to, “Why is our society so inhumanly casteist?” or, “When will upper castes improve?”, making every one ask the question, “Why are we like this?”. The fact that his suicide note did not have a single word about caste discrimination, it only spoke about the need to travel from “shadows to stars” and the impossibility of it, struck a code with Delhi’s students. Now they knew it was not about Dalits alone; it was more about them. Or the impossibility of being themselves ethically in this system. Now the onus was on the academic community: to make sure that Rohith is the absolute last to be orphaned to death.
 
The huge march in solidarity with JNU (against the trending #ShutdownJNU) on February 18 had many posters of Rohith Vemula and slogans such as, “JNU to bahana hai, Rohith ka mudda dabana hai” (JNU is an excuse to distract from Rohith’s issue) prominently demonstrated such a change. The straight-line from FTII through HCU and OccupyUGC to JNU that students kept drawing was quite in place: the central government doesn’t seem to understand the ways in which students work or think.
 
The Narendra Modi government might be good at attacking known political or social formations but students are an evolving social category and it clearly doesn’t have the tools. If FTII was a clear case of trying to show “we can, so we will”, OccupyUGC was an unnecessary provocation and HCU was MHRD’s flexing its muscles gone terribly awry and JNU its hurried conclusions riding on hyper sensationalist jingoism. The mass media debates on national/anti-national, continued on social media, made students realise their common sense and regular discussions were stuff that could be termed “anti-national” and they found themselves in a strange situation where they had to explain their very existence to friends and family in the “tax payer entitlement” narrative. Students who were not part of any existing political formation also felt alienated and they kept telling themselves and others: students have to fight as students. In fact, they found a student issue with a cosmic objective to fight for.
 
The “Chalo Dilli” march on April 23rd and its clarion call “Delhi for Rohith Vemula” became exciting not just because more than 5,000 people walked a kilometre together from Ambedkar Bhawan to Jantar Mantar, or because there was a representation from all parties other than the BJP for the rally, but because the students had found a new icon in Rohith Vemula. It was difficult to dispute him or reject him if you didn’t have party obligations or social interests.

The speciality of this icon was in its social content: caste was becoming an issue of political debate in student lives. Some Delhi students whose encounter with caste as a political issue was rather new also kept shouting “Jai Bheem” in an event primarily organised by Dalit organisations. 
 
One of the limitations of the Indian student movements has been their being floated and managed by students who socially belong to the ruling elite of the country. This is quite different from the Western situation where student movements have been political, academic and cultural manifestations of social changes. The chemical change of thinking in the 1960s was a result of socio-economic changes that ushered in women, African Americans, refugees, third world students and homosexuals into academe in huge numbers.
 
In India, such a turn hasn’t happened. Nationalism and universal class wars were the concerns of student politics in earlier decades. But now the organising principle of Indian society is their problem as students. It might be the caste turn for student discourses. 
 
Surely, unlike in the University of Hyderabad, where the number of Dalit students is huge and the discourse of caste is very strong, Delhi still doesn’t have such a situation. But it must now emerge to address the huge blind spot they have now realised. And Rohith Vemula gives them the perfect point of departure. 
 

The post Rohith Vemula March: The Caste Turn for Student Delhites? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

PM Modi with Turkish President Ergodan

Everyone else’s father is in prison in Istanbul,

they want to hang everyone else’s son

in the middle of the road, in broad daylight

People there are willing to risk the gallows

so that everyone else’s son won’t be hanged

so that everyone else’s father won’t die

and bring home a loaf of bread and a kite.

People, good people,

Call out from the four corners of the world,

say stop it,

Don’t let the executioner tighten the rope

[ Nazim Hikmet, 1954 ]

Its best to stay as far away as possible when two m***a dons meet to talk business. Especially when their deep state security detail has a disturbing tendency to shoot first and ask questions after. Today, Delhi’s roads are emptier than usual, even on a Sunday. And I am reading Nazim Hikmet, because a thug is coming to town.

The Turkish president Recap Tayyip Erdogan’s motorcade will soon be speeding from Palam Airport.  He is on his way to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi right now. They have a busy two days ahead, so many meetings, so many handshakes. Perhaps, later today or tomorrow, to save time, they could resort to the latest bit of political technology that they are both known to be found of – the hologram, to engineer at least one or two successfully ecstatic public appearances. Imagine two giant holograms – Modi and Erdogan, illuminating the growing darkness of a New Delhi night, hand in hand. What a sight that would be for sore neo-fascist Hindi-Turki eyes.

Today, in Turkey and in India, the head hangs low, the mind is running scared.

But seriously, the agenda is full. Back-to-back, man-to-man meetings – there’s so much to talk about, so many notes to compare. How to strike a deal about what needs to happen so that India can brown nose the Nuclear Suppliers Group (where Turkey packs a heavy punch). The minor matter of how to deal with pesky little Cyprus (which Modi just did, last week, by telling the visiting Cypriot president that Erdogan was next in queue, so Cyprus had better hurry up and go).

How to win elections and run a declared-undeclared emergency at the same time. How to have the media fight over who gets the choicest crumb thrown from the high table while they salivate for more. How to have cronies rake in the loot on an unprecedented scale and still pretend to be a saint running a corruption free government. Then there is the usual question of how to kill more Kurds, sorry Kashmiris (same difference). Not to forget – how to arrest students, professors and shut down universities. Busy, busy, busy. Like the bromance of two real men at the helms of state ought to be.

And Modi gets a bonus, a real Turkish delight, a halva to remember. He gets a photo op with Erdogan,and voila – some pliant minoritarian ‘opinion makers’ (also known as men with Muslim names available for rent to the highest bidder) agree to forget the Gau Rakshaks, ignore Love Jihad paranoia and the genocide fantasist Yogi-Chief Minister. You can almost hear them say  “Agar Modi-Erdogan Ho Bhai-Bhai toh Hindu Rashtra Bhi Why Not Try”. (If Modi and Erdogan Can be Brothers, why Not Accept a Hindu State’. Nice. Or as they would say in Turkish – Mükemmel.

A few hired Maulanas, a few ‘community leaders’ and a tame vice-chancellor in attendance, in their best ironed sherwanis and gleaming polyester suits, bent and smiling that eager but absent-mindedly fake smile that terrified subjects offer to bored, violent and venal sultans.

In exchange, Erdogan gets a shiny Re-Designed for Dictators Doctor of Letters Degree over tea and kababs (broiler chicken, not beef) at Jamia Millia Islamia. With a few hired Maulanas, a few ‘community leaders’ and a tame vice-chancellor in attendance, in their best ironed sherwanis and gleaming polyester suits, bent and smiling that eager but absent-mindedly fake smile that terrified subjects offer to bored, violent and venal sultans.

As for honorary degrees, what’s the big deal? Jamia Millia Islamia gave it to Ban ki Moon, to the Dalai Lama, and what was that pesky economist – Amartya whatsisname Sen. That was a mistake, bad mistake. But listen, they did give it to the useful Saudi Superslime, who’s par-dada log were mere vassals of the Ottoman Empire. So why not Erdogan, the Neo-Ottoman Caliph in Waiting. Why not indeed? It feels nice to bask for a moment in the fleeting light of the comet-tail of a passing tyrant when you have no dignity left to call your own.

At the last count, 1,00,155 people have been detained; 2,099 educational institutions (including several universities) across Turkey have been shut down; 7,317 academics have lost their jobs, and 2,824 student activists are in prison.

Making nice with Erdogan Aqa is another way of staying in the good books of Modiji and Yogiji. Who knows which minor governorship might come one’s way? There are always advantages to accommodation, just like some ‘community leaders’ of Jewish settlements in Eastern Europe thought, while managing their communities’ transport arrangements with the likes of Hitlerji and Himmlerji. Remember, this was done in exchange for a slight postponement of the dates of their particular appointments with the Zyklon B technicians. One must always learn from history.

The last time a Turkish head of government came visiting India, in 2000, he was also conferred with an honorary doctorate – and this was Bülent Ecevit, who was felicitated with a doctor of letters (Honoris Causa) degree, no, not by Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, but by Vishwa Bharati University, Shantiniketan.
 

Ecevit, like many politicians of his time, was a complex character, combining a hardline Turkish secular nationalism (which prompted him to issue orders for an armed invasion of Cyprus) with a commitment to an open, democratic and broadly centre-left consensus, that was opposed to the deep structures of militarist power in the Turkish state, an enlightened, secular cultural and educational policy, and a sincere appreciation of basic civic rights. One can at least look back at his legacy with a certain degree of ambivalence. But there cannot have been any doubts about his having deserved an honor from the university founded by Rabindranath Tagore.
 

It is a little known and little appreciated fact that Bülent Ecevit, apart from being a hard-nosed survivor and wily left of centre Turkish politician, was also a fluent Bangla speaker, Sanskrit scholar and translator of Rabindranath Tagore.

Ecevit and Erdogan are a study in contrasts. Ecevit was a contradiction, an ivory tower intellectual who had the guts to take on the Turkish military at the height of the cold war, a ruthless Turkish chauvinist who could also be an open minded liberal, a deeply learned man of culture who was also a savvy backroom politician, as well as a bit of a demagogue.

Erdogan, on the other hand, is a street thug and a smart operator who made it to the big time courting the tails of shady imams. Many Turkish men and women of a certain generation can suddenly pull line after line from Tagore in chaste Turkish, especially after a few rounds of Raki, because they say that during the years of the military coup in Turkey, Tagore helped them think about a time when their country could once again awaken to a state ‘where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high’.

Incidentally, there was a period in the 1970s in Turkey, when Turkish translations of the writings of Tagore (and interestingly Charu Mazumdar !) were banned, together with translations of the Upanishads and the Gita – because these books were often found in the hostel rooms of leftist students. Turks owe their Tagore to Ecevit. To Erdogan, they owe mainly an epidemic of shiny shopping malls.

Today, in Turkey and in India, the head hangs low, the mind is running scared.

Both Erdogan and Modi are authoritarian, dictatorial leaders buoyed by electoral victories achieved through masterly media manipulation and messaging, both invoke religion and majoritarian anxieties cynically, both deploy fantasies of global great power status to excite large populations of insecure men who are kept busy as armies of trolls and vigilantes, and both nurture a deep, pathological hatred of intellectual dissent and openness.

Erdogan and Modi are both leading civilian regimes which despite having elected parliamentary majorities behind them are intent on behaving like insecure military dictatorships. Both have a growing and ugly cult of personality, and both seem particularly irritated by the idea that universities should be places where anyone should learn anything other than how to chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Hai’ or “Huzur, Güvenlik, İstikrar” (Peace, Security, Stability) in classrooms about as empty as the minds of the two dear leaders themselves.

Ever since the brutal repression of the peaceful Gezi Park citizens protests in Istanbul’s Taksim Square in 2013 (to resist the demolition of a popular park to make way for a mosque and mall complex in which members of Erdogan’s inner circle in the AK Party have commercial interests – through ties to the controversial construction company Kaylon – but which rapidly turned into a wide ranging general protest against the Erdogan regime) and a few high profile investigations threatened to reveal the mountain of corruption carefully nurtured by Erdogan’s son and his cronies, (including cabinet ministers) the AKP regime has taken a decisive turn towards authoritarianism.

The convenient spectacle of a Turkish Islamism and Ottoman revivalism (exactly like its twin – Hindutva and Great Indian Nationalism) has been deployed by Erdogan’s government to roll back freedom in public spaces, to attack the rights of women (for instance to free and safe abortion) and sexual minorities and to turn a vibrant, open, deeply secular society into one riven by paranoia, patriarchal grandstanding and cultural censorship.

Artists, writers and musicians have been attacked, the state has deliberately insulted, targeted and provoked religious minorities such as the Shia Alevi, workers and working class activists have been assaulted, state terror against the Kurdish minorities unleashed, and despite overt statements to the contrary, the Erdogan regime has flirted with the ISIS in Syria and Iraq, especially to provide safe passage to ISIS fighters engaged in combat with the militantly secular, feminist and anti-state partisans of the Kurdish dominated YPG guerrilla forces in northern Syria, who are locked in a triangular battle against the Syrian state and its Iranian mentors, the ISIS rebels and the US and Saudi backed Al Nusra front.

The latest wave of repression in Turkey, following a shadowy coup attempt apparently involving Gulenist elements (Fethullah Gulen is a US based soft-Islamist cult leader and sometime ally of Erdogan who has fallen out with him of late) had led to a total crisis, especially in the universities and intellectual and cultural life in Turkey. The repression is reaching unimaginable proportions. Just for example, as of today, you would not be able to follow some of the links in the this post, which lead to Wikipedia pages on the Gezi Park protests, or to the 2013 corruption scandals, because today, the Erdogan regime decided to ban access to Wikipedia in Turkey.

To try and stem the crisis of legitimacy of his regime, Erdogan recently called for a plebiscite to affirm constitutional changes to expand and consolidate his power. It is widely acknowledged that the plebiscite, which took place under repressive conditions and a gagged media, and widespread, well substantiated allegations of electoral fraud, is deeply flawed. For whatever its worth, it is true that Erdogan won the plebiscite, Trump style, by a very narrow margin, while completely losing the confidence of every major Turkish city. The comparisons of this victory with Ahmedinijad’s stolen election in Iran of 2009 are by no means unwarranted.

The Erdogan–Modi chemistry is transparent (Marine Le Pen, the far right French leader revealed an interesting truth when she said that she believes that the world has changed, that it is now a Trump-Modi-Putin world. She forgot to include  Erdogan and Hungary’s Viktor Orban in this axis, but she might as well have had). Both Erdogan and Modi are authoritarian, dictatorial leaders buoyed by electoral victories achieved through masterly media manipulation and messaging, both invoke religion and majoritarian anxieties cynically, both deploy fantasies of global great power status to excite large populations of insecure men who are kept busy as armies of trolls and vigilantes, and both nurture a deep, pathological hatred of intellectual dissent and openness.

At the last count, 1,00,155 people have been detained; 2,099 educational institutions (including several universities) across Turkey have been shut down; 7,317 academics have lost their jobs, and 2,824 student activists are in prison. Academicians for Peace, a group of more than one thousand Professors who signed an open letter condemning human rights violations in Turkish Kurdistan were charged with treason and are now being prosecuted. Professors expelled from universities are now well attended taking classes in open public spaces.

One has only to read a minor detail in this litany of horrors to understand what exactly is happening in Turkey under Erdogan. Here is an extract from a report of April 3, 2017 (exactly twenty seven days ago) of the English language site of Hurriyet, a mainstream Turkish newspaper.

CHP deputy Özel said the number of arrested and convicted students was “terrifying.” (CHP is a moderate centre left opposition party)

“It is above our estimations. Even the students unfurling banners about free education are charged with [crimes related to] the armed terrorist organizations. The prosecutors trying to create criminals seemed to have achieved that,” Özel said.

Galatasaray University student Cihan Kırmızıgül was arrested for wearing a “poshu” scarf in Kağıthane in Feb. 2010 and was kept under arrest for 25 months. “Since the piece of cloth called poshu was used for the intention of a crime, it is decided on his confiscation according to the Article No: 54 of the Turkish Penal Code,” the court’s verdict for Kırmızıgül read.

If we think that Modi is rapidly pushing India into a space where educational institutions and universities become empty ghosts of their former selves, we have no idea of implications of the scale of repression that Erdogan has unleashed in Turkey. Our worst nightmare would be to have India emulate Turkey, Modi learn how to fine tune repression from Erdogan.

[For more information on the educational emergency on Turkish campuses please see the section on Turkey in the ‘Scholars at Risk’ website.]

That this should happen is not surprising in itself, and frankly I do not care how many times Modi kisses Erdogan’s Ottoman, but it comes as a terrible surprise and shock to learn that Jamia Millia Islamia, the university where I studied, which gave me and my batch mates at the Mass Communication Research Centre (AJ Kidwai-MCRC, as it is known today) a precious gift of time to learn how to think critically, should now honour this monster.

The Jamia that I was in had stalwarts like Prof. Anwar Jamal Kidwai, and Prof. Habib ur Rahman Kidwai, who were proud of the university’s traditions of openness and liberality, and determined to inculcate a critical attitude in their students.

The Jamia that I was in had stalwarts like Prof. Anwar Jamal Kidwai, and Prof. Habib ur Rahman Kidwai, who were proud of the university’s traditions of openness and liberality, and determined to inculcate a critical attitude in their students. I cannot imagine someone of the stature of AJ Kidwai bending his ram-rod straight spine to genuflect to a third rate fraud like Erdogan, or even Modi.

Today, the Jamia administration’s actions reflect a tragic transformation, the alteration of the university’s character into  a pathetic, provincial, narrow minded shadow of its former institutional self, ever eager to conform to every diktat of an authoritarian regime, always willing to police and restrain its students, and shorn of the dignity that it once had as a proud and independent institution.

It is for this reason that a petition was initiated yesterday on Change.org to campaign amongst students, faculty, alumni of Jamia Millia Islamia to express their strongest possible condemnation of the university authorities’ shameful decision to act as a tool of the Modi regime in the course of its appeasement of Erdogan. I urge as many people as possible to sign this petition.

I am aware that some friends who have shared the petition, especially young women student activists, have received pathetic, misogynist and obscene hate messages, from people who claim that Erdogan makes them feel proud to be Muslim. This only shows, yet again,  that there is a perfect convergence in the interests and operational styles of Hindutva and Islamist goons. They are everywhere, the identical enemies of freedom. The same macho morons.

On the other hand, Mohsin Ali, the head of the Turkish Studies department in Jamia Millia Islamia, reacting to the online campaign against JMI honoring Erdogan has said – “this is done by a section of students who are supporters of Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.”

Nothing can be further from the truth. I know this, because I started the petition, and the charge that someone like me has something to do with Fethullah Gülen and Hizmet, his version of Islamism Lite (erstwhile supporters of Erdogan before things turned sour, as already noted) is about as high in terms of probability as the suspicion that I am connected to the charlatan called Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and his *art of Living (who also may in time become erstwhile supporters of Narendra Modi. It is politics, after all, things change.)

In February 1978, when Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran came visiting Delhi, he was surprised by a peaceful but determined body of students of universities in Delhi who staged a very vibrant protest demonstration against the repression of Iranian students by the Shah’s government. Some Iranian students also participated in this demonstration. The then ‘post-emergency’ Morarji Desai government promptly arrested all the 117 demonstrators and handed over information about the 12 protesting Iranian students to the SAVAK the Shah’s dreaded secret police. It seems that they were deported to Iran and apparently, several were tortured and killed by the Savak.

It is a matter of profound shame to admit that Indian governments of every shade and description have had a long history of collaboration with tyrants in Muslim majority countries. It does not matter at all who the powers of the moment at either end are. In the midst of the relentless Pakistan phobia that is drummed up constantly in our media, we forget that India consistently kowtows to tyrannies every where else in the Islamicate world.

We, the citizens of this unfortunate republic, owe it to our friends and comrades, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco, Algeria, Indonesia and indeed, everywhere else in the ‘Muslim’ world, to stand by them in their times of trouble. We have long historic ties with these societies, which we cannot allow be torn down by the actions of all our tyrants, secular or sectarian.

We need urgently to listen to the great Turkish communist poet, Nazim Hikmet to speak out from “our corner of the world and say stop” when the executioner, also known as Erdogan proceeds to “tighten his rope“. Let us say, in Jamia Millia Islamia, in every university in India, that we do not want “everyone else’s father in prison in Istanbul, everyone else’s son hanged, in the middle of the road, in broad daylight’.

This much, at least, we owe our friends in Turkey, and to ourselves, and to our linked futures.

This article was first published on Kafila.
 

The post Erdogan Gets A Degree from Jamia Millia Islamia and Everyone Else’s Father is in Prison in Istanbul appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Photo credit: Janata ka Reporter

Universities across the country are being witness to a growing trend of infiltration by the right-wing RSS. Educational institutions used to be known as places where students can openly discuss, debate and disagree on various topics.

In these educational institutions, students have always been allowed their democratic right to dissent. But, as in most other liberal, democratic and progressive spaces, the RSS has managed to penetrate into Banaras Hindu University too. A few days with the students of Banaras Hindu University and some major issues being faced by the students have come to light.

Saffronisation of BHU

Banaras Hindu University (BHU) is a central university located in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency. The current vice-chancellor, professor Girish Chandra Tripathi was appointed in late 2014 by a search panel that was led by the same man who was Modi’s proposer for his candidature as MP from his constituency.

The VC, a self-proclaimed RSS man, has allowed RSS cadres to hold rallies inside the prestigious campus. The VC himself has been seen hoisting the RSS’ student wing, ABVP’s flag on various occasions. With the aim of permeating their proxies into important posts of the university, the VC and the BHU administration have been practicing favoritism while appointing professors.

An RTI reply to a student has revealed that some teaching staff have even been appointed on the basis of stolen PhDs. Yet there has been no action. In a particular episode, an HOD pointed out to the vice-chancellor that a particular appointment as directed by the VC could not be made because the teacher lacked academic credentials.

The VC, in retaliation, asked the HOD to either accept his command without questioning him or resign; the HOD resigned. Such incidents have been taking place every second day across faculties. There is no space for those who question the ‘BHU dictatorship model’ and the administration is only happy to let them go.

Rampant misogyny on the campus

One may ask what really is wrong in RSS taking over an institution. To answer this, let’s understand the current situation in the university.

The right to dissent has been snatched away from students. There have been various instances where students have democratically been protesting in demand for basic rights. Such students have either been suspended or expelled. In a particular incident, students were on a hunger strike demanding a 24-hour open library; a facility that is promised in the university prospectus and was available to students prior to the current VC’s appointment.

Over 1,000 police personnel dragged the students out of campus, beat them brutally and they have now been suspended for two academic sessions. Over time, more than 20 student activists of the university, known to raise their voice, have been framed with serious criminal charges including attempt to murder.

Girls are being treated as second class citizens. Girls who enroll into the university have to get an undertaking signed from their parents that they will not participate in any form of protest and if caught doing so they will be removed from the hostel.

Girls are being treated as second class citizens. Girls who enroll into the university have to get an undertaking signed from their parents that they will not participate in any form of protest and if caught doing so they will be removed from the hostel. While boys hostel has both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, the girls’ hostel serves only vegetarian food because apparently it is against ‘Malviya Mulya’.

Girls are not allowed to wear what they want to and have to report in their hostel latest by 8 pm while the boys’ hostel has no curfew time. If a girl is caught talking on her phone (even to her parents) after 10 pm by the warden or housekeeper, the phone gets confiscated and is returned only after their parents are informed about it. If a girl is seen with any boy, she is handed over to the proctor for ‘maligning the cultural and traditional values of our country’.

Representatives of the backward strata of the society have no space in this university. If one picks the list of HODs, important post holders or executive council of the university, the entire list only has ‘upper caste’ names. In such an environment, it is only natural that discrimination will flourish.

The annual budget of the university is nearly Rs 760 crore but the expenditure report is not published. In the past years, the annual report of expenditure used to be sent to the University Grants Commission (UGC). However, in the last two years whether this report has been sent or not is not known.

In this period various scams too have come to light such as – CT scan center scam, alumni gift scam, favoritism in teachers’ appointments, trauma centre scam, medical courses being run without MCI recognition, entrance exam scam, among others.

The administration clearly has a two point agenda to fulfill – communalisation and filling their pockets. They’re keen on making as much money as they can irrespective of how badly it affects the students.

Students inside the campus are scared to even speak up. We cannot afford to have an entire generation of imprisoned minds.

A single ideology is being imposed on all the students, teachers and workers inside the university. The ideological space within which fruitful discussions may be held has shrunk so badly that it has become difficult to breathe. 

Magsaysay awardee SandeepPandey, who was a visiting faculty, was sacked from the university for holding an ideology different from that of the VC. Students were warned that if seen celebrating Valentine’s Day, they’d attract ‘category A’ punishment.

The university prospectus promises a 24-hour library with bus facility for girls till 5 am in the morning. When asked to reinstate this facility, the VC said that expecting girls to study at night is not pragmatic. According to the administration, ‘Graduate students don’t need a library. They shouldn’t read anything other than the syllabus. They are demanding a cyber-library to watch porn.’ Petrol bombs too have been found inside hostel rooms of an RSS affiliated student.

Such is the situation inside the campus. In such an environment a student will never be able to gain holistic education. This trend is very dangerous to the student community and needs to be stopped.

Students inside the campus are scared to even speak up. We cannot afford to have an entire generation of imprisoned minds. It is important for the student community across the country to understand the dangers that this trend poses to the Idea of India. We all need to unite and fight these fascist forces strongly.

(The author is the National General Secretary of NSUI).
 

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In a statement issued yesterday, 69 academics and activists have expressed their support to writer and Prof Kancha Ilaiah who is under attack from a number  of Hindutva organisations and  against whom the Hyderabad police recently registered a case for ‘hurting religious sentiments’.

 The tendency to resort to police cases in order to stifle any criticism of Hindutva and the regime has assumed menacing proportions, against which we stand firmly with Kancha Ilaiah, the statement noted.

Full text of the statement:

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the continued harassment, attacks on and intimidation of Prof Kancha Ilaiah at the hands of various Brahmin / brahminical organisations, police and the state administration of Telengana for his political writings and views.  We also hold responsible for this intimidatory environment, the Telugu media that reportedly published distorted and misleading reports of Prof Ilaiah’s speech.

While speaking at the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, a wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on May 14, 2016, at Vijayawada (Amaravathi), Prof. Ilaiah had  said: “The Brahmins as a community have not contributed anything to the production process of the Indian nation. Even now their role in the basic human survival based productive activity is not there. On the contrary, they constructed a spiritual theory that repeatedly tells people that production is pollution.”

On the basis of this statement, the Brahmin Associations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana not only burnt his effigies and issued statements of condemnation, but a mob landed up at his office and personally threatened him, allegedly under the guidance of IV Krishna Rao, chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Brahmin Corporation. Following this, the Saroornagar police in Hyderabad booked a case against Professor Kancha Ilaiah for allegedly hurting Hindu sentiments.

The police was acting on the directions of a district court in Ranga Reddy. Last year, a VHP activist filed a complaint against him for his article in a newspaper, titled ‘Devudu Prajasamya Vaadi Kaada’ (“Is God not a democrat?”) after which the Telangana police filed a case against him under Section 153 (A) and Section 295 (A), bowing to pressure from Hindutva organisations. Prof Ilaiah had to move the courts to get a stay order on criminal proceedings against him for merely writing that article.

Prof Ilaiah’s formidable scholarship includes iconoclastic works such as ‘Why I am not a Hindu’, ‘Post-Hindu-India’, ‘Buffalo Nationalism and Untouchable God’ and numerous other writings radically denouncing the caste system in India. It is deeply disturbing to note that a scholar of international repute who has inspired scholars and activists to look at our own history critically, and who relentlessly challenges dominant orthodoxies in the academia, is being targeted by state agencies acting in tandem with Hindutva organisations.

The intimidation of Prof Kancha Ilaiah should be seen as part of the ongoing process of criminalisation of dissent and suppression of freedom of expression which has received a boost under the current government. In this process, the law has repeatedly been turned into a surrogate for Hindutva politics. It is shocking that the Telangana government too has fallen prey to the majoritarian ambience and that its state institutions are backing Hindutva violence.

The politics of Hindutva, while hurting every living being’s dignity and sentiments, continuously claims to be the perpetual and universal victim. Dalits today cannot speak of the indignities and oppression that they have suffered at the hands of the Hindus – even that has become a matter of ‘hurt sentiments’ of dominant groups and castes.

We demand that this intimidation should be stopped and that the police should immediately withdraw police cases against Prof Ilaiah.

 Signatories:
1. Peter Ronald deSouza, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Dr S Radhakrishnan chair of the Rajya Sabha
2. Uma Chakravarti, feminist scholar and historian
3. Tanika Sarkar, retired professor,  Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
4. Sumit Sarkar, retired professor,  Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
5. Partha Chatterjee, professsor, Columbia University and former director, CSSS Calcutta
6. Prabhat Patnaik, professor emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi.
7. Shivaji Panikkar, professor, Ambedkar University, Delhi
8. Nivedita Menon, professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
9. Janaki Nair, professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Unversity
10. Utsa Patnaik, professor Emeritus , Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
11. Apoorvanand, professor, Delhi University
12. Satish Deshpande, professor, Delhi Unversity
13. J.Devika, professor, Centre for Development Studies, Trivanddrum
14. Prathama Banerjee, associate professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
15. Kalpana Kannabiran, professor and director, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad
16. Ayesha Kidwai , Professor , Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
17. Mary John, professsor, Centre for Women’s Development Studies
18. Ankita Pandey, asstt professor,Indraprastha College,  Delhi University
19. Subhash Gatade, New Socialist Initiative
20. Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD
21. Abha Dev Habib, professor,  Miranda house, Delhi University
22. Asad Zaidi  publisher, Three Essays Collective
23. Charu Gupta, professor, University of Delhi
24. Anubhuti Maurya , asstt professor, Delhi University.
25. Dilip Menon, director, Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
26. Nalini Taneja, professor, University of Delhi
27. Pravin Kumar, asstt professor, Satyawati College, Delhi University
28. Jayati Ghosh, professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
29. Arunima G, professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi.
30. Harish Wankhede, asstt professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi
31. Chirashree Dasgupta, associate Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi.
32. C.P. Chandrasekhar, professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi
33. Surajit Mazumdar , professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi
34. Rohit Azad, asstt professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi.
35. Surajit Das, asstt professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi.
36. Manisha Sethi, Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association, NewDelhi.
37. Mona Das, asstt professor, Delhi University
38. Rachna Singh, asstt professor, Hindu College, Delhi University
39. Mahesh Gopalan, asstt professor, St Stephens College, Delhi University.
40. Parth Pratim Shil, asstt professor, Delhi University.
41. Ena Panda , asstt professor, Delhi University.
42. Atul Sood,  professor,  Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi.
43. Navsharan Singh, researcher and activist, New Delhi
44. Kavita Srivastav , People Union for Civil Liberties.
45. Wrick Mitra, assistant professor, Ambedkar University , Delhi
46. Rohit Negi, assistant professor, Ambedkar University , Delhi
47. Shuddhabrata Sengupta, artist and independent writer
48. Anshumita Pandey, assistant professor, Ambedkar University , Delhi
49. K Velentina, assistant professor, Ambedkar University , Delhi
50. Aditya Nigam, professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
51. Mamatha Karollil, Assistant Professor, Ambedkar University , Delhi
52. Sunalini Kumar, asst professor, University of Delhi
53. Shifa Haq, assistant professor, Ambedkar University , Delhi
54. Rachana Johri, associate professor, Ambedkar University, Delhi
55. Arindam Banerjee, associate professor,Ambedkar University, Delhi
56. Anita Ghai, professor, Ambedkar University, Delhi
57. Sumangala Damodaran, professor, Ambedkar University, Delhi.
58. Dhiraj Kumar Nite, asstt professor, Ambedkar University, Delhi
59. Tanuja Kothiyal, professor, Ambedkar University, Delhi
60. Janaki Srinivasan, asst professor,Punjab University
61. Achin Vanaik, retired professor, University of Delhi
62. Pamela Philipose, senior journalist
63. Anil Chaudhary, PEACE
64. Shipra Nigam, researcher, New Delhi
65. Udaya Kumar, professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
66. Rohini Hensman, writer and independent scholar
67. Nandini Sundar, professor, University of Delhi
68. Anupama Potluri, University of Hyderabad 
69. Narendra Subramanian, professor, McGill University, Montreal 
 

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Academics supporting the petition with the author outside the court, Istanbul

There are now over 2,000 Turkish scholars, researcher and university teachers being accused of supporting terrorism.  This attack against freedom of speech and targeting the intellectual heart of Turkish society through the universities is the most vicious illustration of how determined is President Erdogan to allow no criticism of his policies, even when his actions breach all international human rights and legal standards.

Last Friday, April 21st, four Turkish academics, Meral Camci, Kivanc Ersoy, Muzeffer Kaya and Esra Mungan, after five weeks remanded in prison, were brought to the Heavy Penal Court in Istanbul to face charges of making “propaganda for terrorism” and of association with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), labelled as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US. The indictment accused them under Article 7(2) of Turkey’s anti-terror law and if convicted they could face sentences of up to 7 ½ years in detention.

Although at the end of the day, the prisoners were released, and the Judge adjourned the case to September 27th, confusion reigns among the academics and the lawyers.

This trial attracted, rightly, international attention, as it illustrated how far President Erdogan is prepared to go to prohibit freedom of speech in order to silence any criticism of his policies, even when it is clear that the government’s actions breach both international and European law and its own constitution which guarantees freedom of speech.

To attack Turkey’s eminent scholars in this way has brought protests and support for the academics from people all over Turkey. Thousands filled the square in front of the Court before the hearing carrying banners and calling for the scholars’ release.  Unlike previous trials under the Anti-Terror Act of lawyers, journalists, trade unionists, and Kurdish politicians this one was attended by more than eleven consuls including those from the UK and the US as well as many international observers and human rights bodies. I was there as an observer from the UK.

These four defendants, two women and two men, were selected for arrest and imprisonment simply because they happened to be the ones who publicly read out, on March 1st, in the offices of EGITIM SEM, the Education and Science Workers Union, the press statement affirming their commitment to the January “ACADEMICS FOR PEACE PETITION” to President Erdogan entitled “WE WILL NOT BE A PARTY TO THIS CRIME”.

This petition had been signed by over 1,128 Turkish academics from different universities and disciplines, and now by several hundred Western intellectuals, including such luminaries as Noam Chomsky.  A further 1,000 Turkish academics have since added their names to the petition.

This attack on  freedom of speech and on the academics calls into question whether Turkey will ever comply with the Copenhagen Criteria which govern  EU accession and with international and European international human rights and humanitarian law. But does Turkey care? Has it got the EU and the US over a barrel, as it has such a key role to play in the Syrian conflict and in addressing the refugee crisis?

The academics denounced the Turkish government for renewing conflict in the Kurdish South-East and demanded that those responsible for violations of human rights and humanitarian law should be made accountable and punished. They drew attention to the perpetration of collective punishment of civilians trapped in the Kurdish towns and villages under curfew, the killings, destruction of homes and livelihoods, the withholding of food, water, and medicine from people in need, and the displacement of thousands fleeing the violence. They called on all governments across the world to reconsider their relations with Turkey, and they pleaded for the resurrection of the peace talks with the Kurds that Ankara broke off in July, 2015.

Some 50 academics have already been dismissed from their posts and 27 suspended by the disciplinary committees of their universities pending the criminal investigations by the Prosecutor of all the academics who signed the petition.  So there are now over 2,000 Turkish scholars, researcher and university teachers being accused of supporting terrorism.  This attack against freedom of speech and targeting the intellectual heart of Turkish society through the universities is the most vicious illustration of how determined is President Erdogan to allow no criticism of his policies, even when his actions breach all international human rights and legal standards. Also it shows the extremes he will go to in order to silence his critics, including exploiting the already seriously flawed justice system – flawed because it lacks independence – so as to lock up journalists, trade unionists, teachers, writers, Kurdish politicians, co-mayors and now its scholars.
 

The author speaking outside the court with Can Dundar ( far right), editor in chief of Cumhuriyet newspaper, recently released from prison

In the packed courtroom the defendants and their lawyers tore to shreds the  allegations in the Prosecutor’s indictment, because they contained not an iota of evidence that any crime had been committed. There was, they argued, no proof that any of them had ever been in communication with the PKK as stated in the indictment, or even knew its present co-chair Bese Hozat, from whom, the Prosecutor alleged, they had received orders to write this petition.

“To demand peace is not a crime” was a constant declaration throughout the hearing. This trial was described by the lawyers as a “legal scandal “.

“We expect you to end this parody of a trial, in which there are so many illegal irregularities. Acquit the defendants and drop this case which is damaging Turkey’s reputation internationally” urged one of the lawyers representing the defendants.  Ceran Uysal, one of the women lawyers, pointed out that anyway no law existed regarding the issuing of press statements and that the AKP was targeting and punishing academics because it feared their influence on intellectual life and on the youth.

 Meral Camci, the psychology professor, spoke for all her academic colleagues when she said “as scholars we value the truth and critical thinking is central to all our disciplines”.

 Kivanc Ersoy, the mathematician, in rejecting the allegations, declared “as intellectuals we have the responsibility to promote peace. We, the intellectuals, are the conscience of Turkey, just as Jean-Paul Sartre was the conscience of France when he denounced De Gaulle’s policies that caused such suffering in Algeria. We should not be punished for it”. 

Muzeffer Kaya, the historian and social scientist, displaying the hand-cuff scars on his wrist, berated the Prosecutor for the fictions in the indictment that tried to link him and his colleagues with “people we have never met and did not know”. “We are scholars, we have ideals, and we are for justice and truth. We have the right, under Article 25 of the Constitution to express our thoughts, to advance knowledge, and share ideas. These are not crimes. We have broken no law”. He said “ We could not stay silent. Our petition is for peace. We could not let our children pay the price in the future for the government’s mistakes”.

After four hours of speeches by the defendants and their lawyers, in a court crowded with the families of the imprisoned scholars, other Turkish lawyers and international observers, finally, late in the afternoon, there was an extraordinary development. 

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the Prosecutor, most probably realising that he had been utterly defeated, that his indictment was shown to be a construction of fictions, proposed to the Judge that he withdraw the indictment under the Anti-Terror Act and instead charge the defendants under the infamous Penal Code Article 301. This article makes it a crime to “insult Turkishness”. However, in 2008, under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights, changes were made and it is now obligatory  to get the Minister of Justice’s approval to file such a case.  At this point everyone in the public area of the court rose to their feet shouting “ Shame” and “Release them” until the judge ordered us to sit down and be silent.

Making such a bizarre proposal  at this late hour clearly disconcerted the judge and his two assistant judges, who, instead of retiring to their chamber to discuss how to respond, started to use their mobile phones, under the gaze of all of us in the court. Everyone wondered who were they calling?  Were they trying to contact the Minister of Justice, or the President himself? For this hearing was clearly a political trial and required a political solution.

Finally, after a few minutes the verdict came.  The defendants would be released.  The case would resume on September 27th. Since there were no bail conditions, no requirements of giving up their passports, or reporting to the police, these scholars would be free to travel abroad, and, if they have not been suspended, resume their university duties. There was loud jubilation and cheers both inside and outside the court where hundreds were waiting for news.

But now of course there reigns absolute confusion, both among the academics (over 2,000 are still subject to investigation under the Anti Terror Act) and the lawyers. Will the Justice Minister give the necessary approval for the change of indictment? What if he does not? Will the original indictment still stand?  Does the proposal to use Article 301 apply just to these four defendants, or to all the signatories?  What are the rights of the academics who have been sacked or not had their contracts removed?  Meral  Camci and Muzaffer Kaya are among the fifty who have lost their jobs. But Camci bravely responds “The University building may be closed but we can take the university to anywhere” and has invited her students to her home to continue their studies.

Will everyone who signed the Petition have to wait till September to know their fate? Article 301 provides for imprisonment from 6 months to a year, but under Article 7(2) of the Anti-Terror Law imprisonment could last 7 and 1/2 years.

This case has revealed, like never before, the deep flaws in Turkey’s justice system, and how it can be manipulated for political ends. It also exposes dramatically how any criticism of Erdogan and his AKP party is viewed as a crime.  Erdogan has called the academics “traitors”.  He has vowed to “annihilate” the PKK. And the PKK has retaliated by saying that they will resort to force if the violence does not stop, reminding Erdogan that it was the government that broke the peace process last year, not them.

This trial has taken place just when the spotlight is on Turkey and Angela Merkel has promised to “hasten” Turkey’s accession to the EU if Turkey will contain the Syrian refugees and stop them from leaving for Europe.  But this attack on  freedom of speech and on the academics calls into question whether Turkey will ever comply with the Copenhagen Criteria which govern  EU accession and with international and European international human rights and humanitarian law. But does Turkey care? Has it got the EU and the US over a barrel, as it has such a key role to play in the Syrian conflict and in addressing the refugee crisis?

This article was first published on Open Democracy.

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Before coming to UoH I was naive about the problems in society. I had no idea of the pathetic and dehumanised condition of the Dalits and the adivasis. I was hardly aware of the dangerous consequences of caste system in Indian society. But after coming to UoH I began to understand the real picture of the caste system which leads to utter discrimination and dehumanisation of the Dalits.

I saw that the caste system makes the lives of Dalits extremely miserable. Realising my responsibility as an independent and right-thinking citizen of this country I found that the caste system is a tool of dehumanisation and therefore it must be annihilated. I stood against this discrimination of the caste system and thus, I aligned with the movement which Rohith Vemula was part of.

Rohith Vemula, being a Dalit, was institutionally discriminated and was forced to take his own life. The university’s vice-chancellor, Appa Rao Podile directly perpetrated the institutional social boycott against the five Dalit students including Rohith. Following the suicide of Rohith, the VC was booked under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act according to whose provision the accused must be arrested within 24 hours from the lodging of FIR.

However though the FIR was lodged on January 18, 2016 till date he has not been arrested. This is a gross violation of the constitutional provision. Instead, he returned to the university and attempted to illegally reclaim his ‘vice chancellorship’ early morning on the March 22.

On the same day, I went to attend a pre-submission seminar in the department of English, School of Humanities, at around 2.00pm. Coming out of the department at around 3.00 pm, I saw that the peacefully protesting women and men teachers and students were being dragged and beaten up mercilessly by the police. The police were chasing and lathi-charging the protesters indiscriminately. It was revolting to see that the protesters were being beaten up for raising their voice against injustice.

It was a day of police violence on democratic and peaceful protesters. But it was most painful to see women students and teachers being mercilessly beaten up by the police. They were thrashed on their private parts. I also witnessed a female teacher being manhandled/molested by the police.

It was a day of police violence on democratic and peaceful protesters. I saw one student losing consciousness and he was rushed to a hospital. Many students got their clothes torn due to the brutal manhandling and lathi-charge. But it was most painful to see women students and teachers being mercilessly beaten up by the police. They were thrashed on their private parts. I also witnessed a female teacher being manhandled/molested by the police.

It was a violation of women’s rights, as women students and teachers were molested by the male police. Dr Tathagata Sengupta, an assistant professor of mathematics was beaten up too. It was a threatening moment in my life. I never saw such police violence in front of my own eyes. I could not restrain myself from speaking against the police and as a result I was the next to be assaulted.

However, the police brutality actually began when one teacher, one film maker and the 16 students including me were chased and dragged into a police van. I was standing near the ‘Goodwill canteen’ which is around 250 metres away from the VC`s lodge where the protests were happening. From where I was standing, I could see students and teacher being dragged into the police van. But I never thought that I would also be a victim of the police brutality.

Suddenly, one police man chased me and caught the collar of my shirt. I pleaded not to apprehend me as I did not commit any crime except the fact that I stood for the justice for Rohith and supported the students’ movement for justice. I feel that I was targeted because I questioned the police on their face why Rohith did not get justice even after more than three months; why the accused for Rohith’s murder have not been punished; on what ground the VC has come to take charge of the university. In response, I was beaten up, thrashed hard and pushed into the police van.

This inhuman and brutal torture continued on all of us for around 50 minutes on the way from UoH to the Miyapur police station. Dragging me into the van the police forcefully pushed me into a corner seat. Before getting hit I quickly looked at a fellow victim Subhadeep Kumar and asked him what might happen to me as for the first time my life I got into a police van. He assured me that nothing will happen as I did not commit anything wrong.

I could not turn my face to have a look at the rest of the victims in the van, because again the police hit me on my shoulder. I pleaded with them but the police pulled my hair and punched me hard on my back. Another policeman rushed towards me, snatched my mobile and spectacle. But when I pleaded with him to give me back the spectacle as I have a serious eye problem, the policeman boxed me on my right eye, asking why despite being visually challenged I spoke against the police.

Whenever I tried to look at my fellow companions who were beaten up black and blue, the police hit me and cowed me down, so that I could not raise my head again. I heard my fellow students shrieking in pain as they were mercilessly thrashed. Those who had beards and ‘looked like Muslims’ were beaten up specifically, as the police suspected them to ‘like’ the terrorists.

The sound of slapping and hitting still haunts my mind and I feel the pain. Professor K Y Ratnam was also a victim of the police brutality. A filmmaker, Moses Abhilash too was an unlucky victim of the brutality. Abhilash was video shooting the police lathicharge which they did not want the public to see.

The police beatings left wounds on my body. When I requested for water they gave it to me only to beat me up again. The physical assault was extremely systematic and cruel. At that moment I doubted whether I was at all a human being.

While beating us, the police also unleashed a torrent of filthy verbal abuse against all of us. During the journey of police brutality from the UoH to Miyapur P. S., the police were continuously abusing us with the most vulgar and objectionable language. “Madar…., behen…., chu…., bhos….” etc were the words they were throwing at us.

While beating us, the police also unleashed a torrent of filthy verbal abuse against all of us. During the journey of police brutality from the UoH to Miyapur P. S., the police were continuously abusing us with the most vulgar and objectionable language. “Madar…., behen…., chu…., bhos….” etc were the words they were throwing at us. They called us Pakistani ISI agents and alleged that we were spending Indian money and supporting Pakistan and threatened us to send us to Pakistan. They called us anti-national alleging that we are conducting, “beef festival”, “kiss of love”, events on Afzal Guru, Yakub Memon.

They said that they were taking revenge on us for the hard time they had on duty. They also insulted the memory of our departed friend Rohith Vemula saying that he was a ‘bastard’, ‘spoiled child’, that people were unnecessarily paying attention to his death.

They used extremely anti-women, derogatory and sexist comments. They said that they would rape our mothers and sisters, vowed to bring them before us and take their naked videos. They also threatened to do the same with our women friends in the university. Hearing these comments I feel that the safety of women is at great risk and I also feel that the posting of police poses a direct threat to women teachers, students and workers on the campus. Their comments and attitude were dangerous as far as the safety and security of women is concerned. It is appalling how the police remarked against women.

After the brutal torture in the police van we were subjected to harassment in Miyapur police station. After reaching there all of us were made to sit in a dirty and cramped corridor. The police humiliated us by making our respected teacher Prof K Y Ratnam sit on the same dirty floor. The police lectured us about moral and ethical correctness. They behaved with us very rudely while taking our detailed information and pictures.

On asking about our release the police told us that everything is in hand of their “BIG BOSSES”. They also said that the Gachibowli police have already decided our fate. They kept us awake throughout the night by keeping the lights on in front of our eyes and playing songs and videos. When we requested them to let us sleep they laughed at us.

The next day, a sub-inspector of Miyapur P.S. called me for interrogation. He took down all the information in detail, including details of my family members and relatives. He also took photos of my PAN, Aadhaar and university ID cards and the contact numbers of my relatives by checking my mobile phone. He abused me repeatedly and threatened that in future if something happened in the university, I will be a target even if I do not commit any crime.

Thereafter, we were secretly taken to Balanagar police station where we were again harassed physically and mentally. The police made us sit in a dirty and suffocating room. Professor Ratnam was again humiliated by making him sit at the feet of a policeman who was sitting on a chair and giving us pedantic lecture on nationalism and education, about how we should develop our society etc. This was the same sub-inspector of Miyapur P.S. who had abused me in vulgar language.

He chuckled and lied to me when I asked him where we were being taken to. He also mocked me by calling me “team leader” and “mastermind”. I don’t know his motive for using these terms. But I am apprehensive that it is because of my Muslim identity that he was targeting me. I was also not allowed to inform my worried family or friends about my whereabouts.

From Balanagar P.S. we were secretly taken to the Government Area Hospital. I had wounds and pain caused by the police brutality the previous day. But I had no reason to expect any medical treatment. In the hospital I was forced to stand in a queue. The doctor issued me a “fit to be produced at court” certificate despite my critical health condition. I also saw Professor K Y Ratnam`s blood pressure reading to touch 220 mark in the BP machine.

After the “treatment” the Gachibowli CI J. Ramesh forced me to sign the arrest papers according to which I was arrested at around 9.00 pm on March 23, whereas actually I was arrested by the police at 5.30pm a day earlier. When I tried to object, the police officer threatened that not signing the arrest papers would result in additional cases against me.

I was denied any interaction with any legal help. When I politely told him, “Sir, my career would be shattered if my future is tarnished by these police cases”, he aggressively threatened me saying, “Shut your mouth up otherwise I will file more cases against you”. I do not know how to express the fear generated in me by officer Ramesh.

I was taken to a magistrate at around 11.40 pm. But the Gachibowli policemen Naveen and Bhupathi did not allow me to appear before the magistrate to narrate my suffering and woes.

After being medically certified as “fit to be produced at court” I was again confined in the police van. It was suffocating and scorching hot. I requested the police to let me stand out of the van until they were ready to move. But the police once again threatened us. I was very hungry as I did not get anything to eat throughout the day. The police did not bother to hear any of my problems. Then I was taken to a magistrate at around 11.40 pm. But the Gachibowli policemen Naveen and Bhupathi did not allow me to appear before the magistrate to narrate my suffering and woes.

On the magistrate’s order I was sent to Cherlapally central prison. In the prison my health deteriorated further. I requested a prison physician for treatment. He gave me a general painkiller injection and some medicine for the wounds and pain caused by the police beating on March 22. But he did not give me any proper treatment which I badly needed. It still pains me to remember that in the prison the doctor was not allowed inside and therefore, I had to take an injection through the window. I also failed to get an eye checkup as a policeman had hit me on my right eye on March 22.

The police action threatened my life and also the hopes of my family. I feel helpless, hopeless and unsafe. The police has filed false cases against me and others with the deliberate intention to destroy our future and our lives.

The police terrorised us to ensure that we do not protest against the government and its agencies. They kept saying that we should only study and not get involved in politics. They wanted to create fear in us so that before protesting again we will remember the trauma of the police brutality. This poignant memory will always be haunting my life.

Courtesy: Sanhati.

The post First Person: How the Police Battered and Brutalised Arrested Students and Professors of UoH appeared first on SabrangIndia.

I have come home a little while ago from Jawaharlal Nehru University after listening to Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya take back the night. As I drove home  through the quiet streets of Delhi after midnight it occurred to me that somebody should whisper into Narendra Modi’s ear that he should now start stocking up on sleeping pills. (Maybe Baba Ramdev’s enterprise makes some that he could prescribe to the Prime Minister, unadulterated). With young people like Umar and Anirban as his adversaries, the Prime Minister can only have sleepless nights ahead of him. It is perhaps fortunate for him that the team from Madame Tussaud’s came by and did their job yesterday. Because from now on, his real skin tone will only envy the lustre of his wax work. Umar and Anirban, and their friends, took away the little remaining shine that Modi had left at midnight.

The matter of the continuing detention of Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharjee, two students of Jawahar Lal Nehru University, was heard in a Delhi sessions court this afternoon. The arguments in Umar and Anirban’s defence, made, systematically, methodically, with adroit attention to legal detail, by their advocates, Jawahar Raja and Trideeb Pius, convinced the honorable judge that not only do Umar and Anirban deserve bail, but that no offense under Section124A (the law of sedition) can be made out against the two accused at this stage. The bail order read, without rhetorical flourishes, without references to film songs or medical theories, like a bail order should, attentive to points of law, sensitive to questions of justice and judicial propriety. The combined might of large sections of the media, the state apparatus, and a vicious public witch-hunt – all of which were bent on painting Umar and Anirban as nothing short of ‘terrorists’ buckled against the weight of their steadfast refusal to implicate themselves or anyone else in complicity with cooked up charges, the solidarity of all those, students, faculty and others who stood by them, and the clear, reasonable arguments of their advocates. The very heartiest of congratulations are in order, to Umar, Anirban and their families, comrades and friends, to the legal team that represented them, and to the thousands of students, teachers and others who have stood by them, in JNU, in Delhi, across India, and indeed all over the world.
 

Students in Solidarity with Umar Khalid and Anirban. Image, Courtesy, Samim Asgor Ali
 

And regardless of whether or not News X, Zee News and Times Now once again predictably fail in their journalistic responsibilities by not giving an accurate report to their viewers about what actually went down at the Admin Block (rechristened ‘Freedom Square’) last night, by the time the sun rises, video uploads of Umar’s and Anirban’s speeches will have already gone viral down the alleys, eddies and wind-swept sands of social media. Millions of people will know, by listening to two exceptionally intelligent, brave and humorous young men as they sip their morning tea, that this regime’s days are numbered. We can start counting days till the Modi regime falls like the badly sculpted statue of a mediocre dictator of a banana republic after a peoples’ uprising.

The challenge that Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of JNUSU, had thrown to this evil regime in his post-bail speech a few days ago came bouncing back when Umar and Anirban spoke a few hours ago, like a storm returning to the shore bearing the memory of a wave. When they spoke, Umar and Anirban put their shoulder to the wheel. They made history take a crazy, beautiful new turn. Everyone who was there at JNU listening to them, watched and felt things turn. We were all transformed.

Will the spooks in plain clothes who must have been lurking behind trees and pillars, conspicuous with their shoes, bush shirts and safari suits be writing worried notes through the night to their superiors, even as those like me sit through the night taking stock of what we just witnessed? I imagine them whispering into the crackle of their walkie talkies –  “Boss mamla bigad gaya hai. Yeh Umar, Anirban, Kanhaiya, Shehla, Naga aur Asutosh, aur yeh Rohith Vemula ki rooh, aur na jane, aur kaun, yeh sab sarkar ko mazaak bana diye hain. Modi ji ki to khilli ud gayi hai. Aur sangh to bilkul expoje ho gaya, unki to half pant hi utar gayi. Isliye ab full pant par aye hain. Aur boss, kai jagah to ham bhi hans padhey, in baaghi cchatron ko sunte-sunte, kai jagah to ham bhi ro padhey. Bahut dam hai is Umar aur Anirban ki baton mein. Man mein ajeeb si deshdrohi gud-gudi ho rahi thi boss, apne aap. Yun hi. Karein to cya karin”

[ “Boss things have gone all wrong. This Umar, Anirban, Kanhaiya, Shehla, Naga and Asutosh, this haunting spirit of Rohith Vemula, and who knows how many more – they have all made a joke out of the government. Modiji has been made into a laughing stock. And the Sangh (RSS) is totally exposed, they have dropped their half pants (thats why they are thinking of trousers). And boss, in some places these rebel students made me laugh, they even made me cry. There’s substance in what Umar and Anirban are saying. It makes for a a crazy seditious tickling feeling under my skin, just like that.So what the hell should I do?” ]

The air crackled more than the walkie-talkies of plain clothes policemen do. It crackled with an infectious electricity. I saw faces bright with the infection of ‘azaadi’. I saw a nocturnal bouquet of gleaming blue Ambedkarite and red Communist flags fluttering together in the cool breeze like the festoons of some primeval rite of spring. I heard laughter, slogans and songs. I saw dancing. I saw tears of joy. I saw a sea of luminous eyes and smiles. I saw a young woman cradle a sleeping feral puppy and raise the loudest of slogans next to me. The puppy slept blissfully, knowing it was safe. The students were as awake as they could possibly be, and they too knew that tonight, they were safe, that Umar and Anirban were safe, and safe home. No one looked tired or exhausted, not even Umar or Anirban, who had just come back from a month in jail.

Earlier in the afternoon, Anupam Kher, Modi’s court jester, had come to JNU on a ‘pest control’ mission, to show a bad film and attempt to feed his hungry narcissism. I do not think he went away satisfied. After all, he had to face a gathering of mostly empty chairs. I hope he comes again, and listens, for a change. Picture flop nikli. But no one stopped him. No one was rude to him. He tried to squeeze some milage out of what he thought was the absurdity of giving a heroes welcome to people out on bail. He forgot, that the BJP president, Amit Shah was out on bail when he was elected president of his party.
 

Courtesy, India Resists

Celebrations at JNU began early, as soon as the news of Umar and Anirban’s bail order became public.
Image, courtesy, Pankhuri Zaheer

Meanwhile, by late afternoon, everyone had heard the news of the bail order, and JNU began celebrating. Holi, the festival of vibrant colours, began a few days earlier than usual. The spring whose arrival I had first noticed on the  13th and 14h of February, when the campus had  just begun to find its language of solidarity for Kanhayia (who had just been detained) and the other students who had gone underground (including Umar and Anirban) had become by now a heady, strong, intoxication in the air. Aaj masti thi. Rang tha. And like the song says, aaj fir jeene ki tamanna thi, aaj fir marne ka irada tha.

Umar spoke about everything. About the things that worried Anirban and him in jail. About the barbs he was thrown about having a Muslim name. Umar spoke again with great feeling about being reduced (like Rohith Vemula had said) to his ‘immediate identity’. But he gave this declaration a very profound depth this time. He said “what if I were, in fact, a believing Muslim, a bearded, skull cap wearing young man from Azamgarh, what would have happened to me, and what would I have experienced”, he underlined the need for all of us to stand with solidarity with any person unjustly confined against their will, regardless of their identity, regardless of whether or not they were believers, agnostics or atheists, regardless of whether they held opinions that we might disagree with.

He spoke condemning the slogans of ‘bharat ki barbaadi tak jang rahegi, jang rahegi’ that had been raised by some people on the 9th of February at the fringes of the programme ‘Country without a Post Office’, that he, Anirban and their friends had organized. But then he said, that the real reason why the RSS must be so mad at the airing of this slogan is because it amounted to a momentary distraction away from the fact that if anyone can take this country towards ‘barbaadi’ (‘destruction’) it can only be the RSS and its ‘parivar’ (family), and so, they are really cut up about having to share the credit for ‘barbaadi’ with any competitor. This had the audience roar with approval. And then Umar said, if a battle has to continue, it will do so until the RSS is destroyed. Because RSS ki Barbaadi mein hi Bharat ki Aabadi hai. The word Aabadi means both population as well as prosperity. We could say it suggests the ‘well being’ that lets a people be themselves, realize themselves. It is in this sense that Umar held out to his listeners the clear vision of a society free of the fascist, casteist, communal and hierarchical stain of the RSS. The ‘Aabadi’ of JNU, the assembled mass of students, had no problem understanding what Umar meant.

Umar ended his speech by taking Narendra Modi head on. He referred to the prime minister’s speech yesterday in a forum of so-called Sufis calling for peace. Umar said “Modi’s peace is the peace of the graveyard, a state of being bereft of justice”. He asked us all to disrupt this false peace, this unjust stable tranquility. He reminded us, paraphrasing Bhagat Singh, that a state of war already exists – the war of those in power against those without power, a war by the state against students in JNU, against workers in the Maruti factory, against adivasis (indigenous people) being driven out of jal-jangal-jameen (water-forest-land) by big capital, against soldiers made to fight unjust wars and battles, and against women, against dalits, against minorities, even against animals (he was referring to the violence unleashed by BJP politicians against a horse in Uttarakhand) and against everyone who questions the brute force of power and money.

A special round of applause broke out when Umar’s little sister, Sarah Fatima, made her own impromptu speech, saluting her brother, his friend, Anirban, Kanhaiya and the brave students of JNU. She reminded everyone that the struggle will not end until every person gets justice, until Prof. S.A.R Geelani, Saibaba and all other political prisoners are released. Her immense confidence, her pluck, her total faith in the love of all the young people around her made this twelve year old girl the mistress of her moment. I have seen her before, in rallies and marches, carrying flowers and signs in support of Umar and all the detained students, and what has always struck me is her beaming smile. She never looked the part of the suffering family member of a person in prison. She looked like a kid full of beans, eager to take on the world. Her optimism, her courage and her gentle, beautiful audacity will remain an inspiration. It will help us find ways to keep our spirits high whenever things look down.

When Anirban’s turn to speak came he started by leading the crowd through a whole host of slogans. His slight, frail frame, and quiet voice took sprung into a high octane, high velocity string of words that curved spiraled as they rose like the flight-path of some magnificent bird. Once the slogans were done, Anirban came back to his down-to-earth, friendly, resolute self. He spoke about how a lot of policemen had asked him, “Yeh Umar Khalid ka mamla to samajh mein aata hai, par Bhattacharjee, aap ?”, “We can see what makes Umar Khalid involved in all of this, but what dragged you into this mess” proving, as Umar had said earlier, that they were actually far more annoyed with his three fold treason – from his assumed religious identity, nationality and caste. Interspersed with anecdotes about the strange interplay between the real and the surreal aspects of their experiences in the last days, Anirban built up to a rousing set of rhetorical challenges – “If the taking away of the mid day meal from the starving, drought stricken peasants of bundelkhand is nationalism, then, yes, we are anti-national”, “if the suppression of the rights of maruti workers is nationalism, then, yes, we are anti-national”, “if the farce of ‘Make in India’ that sells a phone that doesn’t work with a tricolor screen made in China is nationalism, then we are anti-national”, “if the screaming of the cries of ‘bharat mata ki jai’ by VHP goons while raping Christian nuns in Odisha is nationalism, then we are anti-national”, and so on.

Anirban and Umar reminded their audience that the real reason why the Modi regime and the RSS-BJP-ABVP hate them is because they think. As Umar said, quoting a poem by Brecht, (and obliquely referring to the proposal to station tanks in universities to install ‘patriotic’ feelings) the real problem with JNU, and with all the universities and public education that the BJP government is trying to destroy (by slashing UGC support to the tune of 55%) is that they are all places in which young people think.
 

General, Your Tank is a Powerful Vehicle
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.

           Bertolt Brecht
 
Anirban ended by asking us to keep that ‘criticality’, that power of questioning alive. The night ended as every night must, with questions and song.

And so, a day of great expectations has ended in a night of celebration. And now its almost dawn.

Perhaps the morning that comes after this night will bring with it a new set of challenges. Perhaps the regime will ratchet up its venality. Perhaps it will go after teachers. Perhaps it will find new targets, other places of learning to march into. Or, perhaps it will realize that there is some wisdom in just letting things be. Perhaps it will rein in the dogs of war and viciousness it has unleashed. Perhaps it will build more statues, plant more flagpoles, destroy more flood-plains and forests to please cults and clients. Perhaps it will continue to waste our time. Whatever  it does, it will know, that we, the people, have tasted the sweetness of a small but significant victory. And we are hungry for more.

Umar and Anirban are home. I hope they are sleeping well. I hope their comrades have resisted the temptation to keep them up through the night to tell them one more story about Tihar Jail. They need rest, and all the energy they can gather. because this is just the beginning.

Abhi to bas angrai hai… (this is just a flexing of muscle)
You know the rest of the slogan, don’t you?

Wouldn’t it be appropriate to end a great day and a happy night with a song. This one goes out to Umar and Anirban. From all of us. [Thank you Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.]
 

Jai Bhim. Lal Salaam. Inquilab Zindabad.

Courtesy: Kafila.org

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The Centre for Translations at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, organised a translation workshop on February 8, titled ‘Know in your Language, Communicate in your Voice: Translating the Works of Rohith Vemula’.  The invitation to the workshop read:

Rohith Vemula’s suicide note has rocked the political imagination of our republic, because it points to the hollowness of the promises we as a people set out to deliver for each of us.  His writing demonstrates how we are already at the dead end of language, a situation necessitated by the ethical vacancy of our actions.  Translating the work of this exceptional writer, bearing him across to one’s own socio-cultural and linguistic givens, is a step that can make us realise the limitations of knowing and awaken us to actions.  This event proposes to sit around and translate Rohith’s poems into regional languages and then read them aloud to others for them to feel the vitality of it.

Whatever be your language—Tamil, Assamese, Kashmiri, Hindi, Gujarathi, Marathi, Bengali, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Telugu, Urdu, Manipuri, Punjabi, Kannada or Oriya—if you feel for the cause of social equality, if you are outraged by the way Dalits have been systematically rejected by the centres of higher education in our co​untry, if you feel for the millions who are oppressed and exploited by casteist mindset and its machinery, you might want to come for this afternoon of making sense through collective translations…

The following poems written by Rohith were given to the twenty-nine participants, who spoke thirteen languages: Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese, Bengali, Telugu, Kashmiri, Urdu, Odiya, Tamil, Nepali and French:

From Unpublished Pages
She collects hearts.  And she never cares for them afterwards.  Like footsteps in wet sands, like smiles of children.  She attacks lives.  Like a breezy rain on a lonely night, a soothing that burns.  Everyone knows that she takes off lives, ripping the sense out of your life, yet no one has ever escaped her.  Like death, like love.
Some say she has an agenda, like saving the world.  How to tell her that I am also a part of world?  Some say she loves everyone.  Why am I not in everyone’s part?  Every lip I kiss tastes like loneliness.  Every hug I make is shrinking me further.  Every glass of alcohol seems like an elder with an advice I need to decode.
Should I be sorry that I didn’t friend her in this life?  Or should I be happy that I got a reason for one more life?
 
One Day
One day you will understand why I was aggressive.
On that day, you will understand
why I have not just served social interests.
One day you will get to know why I apologized.
On that day, you will understand
there are traps beyond the fences.
One day you will find me in the history.
In the bad light, in the yellow pages.
And you will wish I was wise.
But at the night of that day,
you will remember me, feel me
and you will breathe out a smile.
And on that day, I will resurrect.
 
Prof N.P. Ashley, coordinator for the workshop, writes: ‘The poems were first read aloud in English.  Afterwards, participants divided into language groups and translated the poems.  The translations were then read aloud to other participants in the workshop.  Thus the event gave a sense of a pan-national reality in regional languages, bringing out the thick texture of languages within India. It drove all of us into the complexities of “understanding” life experiences and the need to work with them for making it one’s own as an ethical responsibility in however limited a manner.  It was a rewarding time of engaging with the social content of Rohith’s poetry for all of us!’

The Centre for Translations has also prepared this short, beautiful video of the poem ‘One Day’ being read aloud by workshop participants in twelve languages:

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post Three Months After, Reading Rohith Vemula’s Poetry appeared first on SabrangIndia.

An open letter to the Prime Minister of India

Honourable Prime Minister of India,

I am fifteen years old, and I’m not an anti-nationalist, but I believe that having an opinion that differs from that of the state isn’t a crime.

I’m not an anti-nationalist, but I believe that physical and verbal abuse by lawyers against the accused in a courtroom in the presence of the police is a defamation of our legal system and violation of the Right to Fair Trial as stated in the Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I’m not an anti-nationalist, but I believe that verbal harassment of an accused on National Television in the name of Media Trial is unjustified. I don’t know journalism or media better than those running the news provision system of our country but what I do know is that each journalist or media personnel or any human being for the matter of fact is subjected to converse or debate with another human being with a certain decency and a sense of respect towards other’s opinion.

Defamation of an accused by a journalist by labelling him/her as an anti-nationalist and calling them a shame to the nation is a violation of the article 41 of the Norms of Journalism Conduct published by the Press Council of India in 2010 and a threat to one’s dignity and public image.

I’m not an anti-nationalist, but I do get furious when the media and the government portray an entire university as a hub of anti-national activities just because it’s students stood up and spoke out their opinion.

I’m not an anti-nationalist, but as an aware student and sovereign individual I’m not afraid to put forth my opinion which may be different from that of my government.

I may not be in support of everything the students of JNU have said, but I believe that as students and well informed citizens of a democratic nation they deserve all the chances to speak out their opinions without the fear of being jailed or tried in the court or media or being labelled anti-nationalists.

I’m not an anti-nationalist, but I believe that India is going to complete 70 years as a democratic nation and it is just time that we do away with the Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code which was introduced by the British during the Colonial Rule to suppress the Freedom struggle. Ironically, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mohandas Gandhi were also tried under the same law.

Mahatma Gandhi famously commented on this law calling it a law designed to suppress the liberty of a citizen. The presence of such a law poses a threat to a citizen’s freedom of speech and our nation’s democracy.

I’m not an anti-nationalist, but I feel scared that if the student’s of this nation are suppressed for difference of opinion today, the future students of our country would be afraid to speak in times of national crisis because of the consequences of today’s student protests.

All those against the movement by the students all over the country need to realise that none of these students are fighting for themselves. But they are standing up for what the believe is right and opposing what they believe is wrong. All those calling this uprise a political conspiracy by the opposition need to understand that these students aren’t politically motivated today.

Their only motivation is to change the situation in our nation and by suppressing them in such unfair ways all you’re doing is proving them right. They may have political aspirations in the future and they are justified to join politics because the only way to change the issues in the system is to be internally a part of that system.

I’m not an anti-nationalist, but I might be called one for writing this letter.

Yours Truly,

Simar Singh,

A Concerned 15 year old.

Courtesy: Kafila
 

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