It was not long ago when I was reading about the list of attacks on educational institutions as parts of planned political disturbances. It had been quite some time since Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) got into a similar trap. Quite recently, it had started with a Tiranga Yatra led by a student-leader aspirant, Ajay Singh, who was given a show-cause notice on the charges of leading a rally in the campus without permission. Also, the participants in the rally are expected to be majorly non-AMU students, accused of creating nuisance in the campus.
This incident was followed with a demand of building a temple inside the university premises. Next in the line was the visit of a team from Republic TV for covering a planned visit of the AIMIM lawmaker, Asaduddin Owaisi. It has been continuously claimed that Republic TV’s entry in the campus was without producing a permission letter from the Public Relations Officer (PRO). But this was never a matter of widespread concern. Tensions arose when a reporter was heard recording in the campus, with a headline that they were “standing in a university of terrorists.” This statement was meant to incite the students around and an immediate hustle followed.
This was just the beginning of the events as the tension was further fanned by condemnation of Asaduddin Owaisi’s visit, by the Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM) activists, which eventually never took place. This series of events evolved into perpetuating protests by students, and the latest news is that 14 AMU students have been booked under the charge of sedition.
Evidently, this brief report will not do any justice to the actual struggle that the complete decorum of a prestigious institution has gone through. The whole incident, with Republic TV on board continuously reporting against AMU, and outside goons entering the campus and beating up university students, some things are explicit with the general elections around the corner. The concern is not about who is wrong, as normally, in such a case, the victims and the accused keep on inter-changing. But AMU, being an educational space, the debate is about whether this whole thing should have happened.
None of us have blurred memories of how JNU has been under a constant political attack since quite some time now and AMU itself is facing such hours quite frequently. In some of my dialogues with local AMU sources, it has come up again and again that the institute has been put under attack because there is no better time than this for engaging people in such petty but sensitive issues to deviate the voters from relevant issues of development.
Also, the fact that AMU is already battling to get a minority status makes the issue altogether more sensitive. It was, ideally, the foremost duty of the city’s administration as well as the state to get involved in the matter without biases and solve the issue as soon as possible. But I guess ideals have gone extinct today.
It is a sad hour for each one of us in this contemporary phase when intellectual spaces are put under constant attack. In my personal capacity and opinion, I strongly condemn the sedition charges against the 14 students without any produced proofs. What is to be understood here is the vocabularies attached to this whole incident: university of terrorists, anti-national, tiranga yatra. These are some of the terms we read and hear every day with an imposed idea of nationalism.
It horrifies me to see that the system is waging war against its own people. How can some university students, on account of joining a protest, be charged of sedition and put under a lifetime battle with their careers? It has also been reported that a bunch of non-university students entered one of the boys hostel and a student got beaten up brutally leaving him unconscious for almost half a day. The people who did that are still roaming free of any inquiry.
With this piece, all I want to share is the deep despair which this incident fills me with. In fact, every such incident which ends up engaging university students in activities which are least relevant for a person’s development, especially in a university space, is a matter that should bother all of us.
Are such issues part of the political agendas of the leaders who are always pleased with people either being silently obedient, or being in a battle amongst themselves? JNU, Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University and TISS signify how all premium institutes have gone through a struggle.
With such courses of incidents happening time and again, I rest my pen here with one thought. Leave the educational spaces alone for students to become better citizens of tomorrow, who can contribute to the development of the country, and don’t let them turn into a generation of frustrated citizens.