By Souravi Sarkar:
It was the morning of 17th September 2014 when I found out about the brutal lathi charge on the peacefully protesting students outside the Vice-Chancellor’s office of my university. I was deeply flustered by this news and immediately took to social media along with thousands of other students from different parts of the nation to condemn this attack on the students in the middle of the night.
What was deeply disturbing about it was the way the entire situation had been handled. The police entered the campus and allegedly molested female students. From the video footage, I recognised some of my seniors and friends being beaten up ruthlessly by plainclothesmen while the uniformed police remained silent observers. The students were only demanding an investigation into the molestation of a female student in the campus. They didn’t deserve this treatment. The V-C was supposed to be our protector. But instead, he chose to release gundas on students like dogs chasing food.
The entire series of events triggered mass protests around the city demanding the resignation of the V-C. The protest movement, known as ‘Hokkolorob‘, is one of the landmark events in the history of the world. I was a part of it. On 20th of September, I was in the rally from Rabindra Sadan to Mayo Road, drenched in the rain, with lakhs of other students. We were overwhelmed by the amount of solidarity for us from different cities and countries. We called for an end to campus violence. And we emerged victorious with the resignation of the V-C a few months later.
But very few people actually know what happened in between the two events–the rally and the resignation. Some of my friends who live in the hostel presented themselves as witnesses to the molestation case. But later they were dragged to the jail by political goons, police harassed them as criminals. But none of the leading political organisations of our college came out in support of my friends. They lost their dignity while the people who led the protest movement won positions in the upcoming campus elections.
We as students started seeing the loopholes in their political ideologies. They were leftist parties driven by a blind hatred towards the victory of right-wing parties. They started opposing any decision taken by the government. And then the Jawaharlal Nehru University incident happened.
The fact is that the leftist ideology most of these parties believe in only displays their opportunist tendencies. It is perfectly alright to oppose another party’s ideology, another person’s ideology, but no democracy permits the blatant display of hatred towards one’s nation. Our nation is indeed our motherland, to speak ill of one’s mother is indeed a crime. A cultural event that seemed more like a memorial for the ‘martyr’ Afzal Guru doesn’t deserve applause. It just shows the fact that these parties will do anything to prove Modi wrong, and to grab some publicity.
They justified their act by saying that they oppose the judicial killing of a criminal and that they oppose capital punishment. But the video footage paints a different picture altogether. Their slogans that can be heard do not show that they oppose Modi or his decisions. They have explicitly expressed their support to the destruction of the nation. No nation has ever been perfect. There are problems. But you wish for a solution, not destruction. While the entire nation was praying for the speedy recovery of Lance Naik Hanumanathappa, these students shamelessly demonstrated their anti-national mentality which they later justified by saying that Modi, the BJP and the RSS are dictators etc.
Afzal Guru was a convicted terrorist. He was involved in the 2001 parliament attacks and to portray him as a ‘martyr’ is not justified. But he was hanged in 2013 when BJP hadn’t even come to power. He was hanged by the UPA government. Then why such an upsurge of protests against BJP. JNU has always been a hub for leftist parties. Since the time Modi has come to power his opposition parties have left no stone unturned to accuse him of everything that they can possibly think of. Be it the Dadri lynching, or the Godhra riots for which he has received a clean chit from the court, or his friendship with the American President and the Pakistani Prime Minister.
The fact that only the minorities of our nation deserve protection and have the right to speak against the democracy just reveals their biased mindset. He was even blamed for the death of Rohith Vemula. Caste discrimination is not a new thing. It has existed for centuries. Then why attack the RSS or the BJP for it? All these movements and revolutions have political interests and they demonstrate the pettiness of their so-called leftist ideology.
Violence erupted in Kashmir after the hanging of Afzal Guru. The Indian soldiers protect all Kashmiris, including those who sympathise with Pakistan. But when students of elite institutions openly support terrorists, they incite terrorism in the nation. The supporters of Afzal Guru have now found more reasons to continue their anarchy. What the students believe to be their freedom of expression will only worsen the situation, with the peace being interfered with by various Afzal Guru sympathisers.
We lost our brothers in the recent Pathankot attack. Do their sacrifices mean nothing to us? Do their political agendas bear more importance compared to the grieving families of these soldiers whose wounds are still fresh? Freedom of expression doesn’t permit us to impose our destructive ideologies on the country when it costs us the lives of the soldiers who are protecting our nation in the cold and in the heat.
I do not support the shutdown of JNU because some individuals do not represent one institution. I do not support the ancient sedition laws because they have no place in this democracy. I am not a ‘bhakt’, or a supporter of RSS as some people might suspect. I am only a concerned citizen who wants the citizens of this nation to live in harmony, where people start finding healthy ways of expressing their views instead of vehemently opposing every step taken by the government.
My strongest sympathies go out to the students who felt violated by the police atrocities in their campus. But when you study in an institution that boasts off great alumni, you need to choose your words carefully. You may speak against a government. You don’t need to speak against the nation because one government doesn’t represent the whole nation. We reside in that nation too. Students have always been the major contributors towards the welfare of the country. But when you are driven by abhorrence and not sensibility, you often choose to take the wrong step to prove yourself correct.
Maybe, your intentions are good. But ideas are bulletproof, my friend. They cannot be killed by guns and the government. So, think before you actually inflict your ideas on others. The aftermath might be disastrous.