EDITORIALS

New Tryst with Freedom

The attack on students, this time in JNU, is part of Indias unresolved culture wars.

n a deplorable, if not entirely unexpected, move the administration of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has taken
strong disciplinary actions against students it had identified
for alleged indiscipline and for breaking university rules. Students
have been fined from `10,000 to `20,000 and some have been
rusticated for different lengths of time; one student has been
declared out of bounds from the campus for five years. These
are unprecedentedly harsh measures. The only time similar
measures were taken was in 1983; unlike then there was no
violence from the students this time.
Despite having had the process of an enquiry before handing
out these punishments it does appear that the punishments are
unfair and, more importantly, driven by the saffron political
waves trying to drown out the island that has been JNU. The
students and teachers of JNU had raised serious questions about
numerous procedural lapses in the entire processthe very
constitution of the High Level Enquiry Committee, the random,
yet deliberate, manner in which some students were targeted, the
sending of show-cause notices, the charges of indiscipline,
spreading casteist and communal feelings, etc. That the university addressed none of these and punished about a score of
JNUs politically active students, while ignoring that its students
and teachers were charged and physically attacked on the basis
of forged videos and palpably false testimonies, cannot but suggest political play to any independent observer. The students
have decided to reject the punishments, not pay the fines and go
on an indefinite hunger strike demanding their withdrawal.
However, the actions of the JNU administration are not an
isolated case. In institution after institution of Indias relatively
vibrant public higher education system, the Narendra Modi-led
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-led students group Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad have ignited a war against the
students and faculty. IIT Madras, the Film and Television
Institute of India, Jadavpur University, the University of
Hyderabad, Allahabad University, JNU, Aligarh Muslim University, the list goes on.
This battle promises to be a long one and it is unlikely that
either the government or its political mentor, the RSS, will give
up easily. Every trick of the political tradehurling accusations of
anti-nationalwill be matched by coordinated state action
foisting cases of sedition. Various governments of almost all
parties, both at the centre and the states, have often used state
power to push their academiccultural agenda in universities.
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However, the present moment seems different. There is a coordinated push to a specific ideological agenda which seeks to
rewrite not just academic content but also reshape academic
culture as well as the very purpose of the university into one
which conforms to the ideology of the party in power.
What is remarkable is that the determination shown by the
student protestors is also somewhat unprecedented. Who would
have thought that in Allahabad Universitythe heartland of
Uttar Pradesh where the NDA had won 73 out of the 80 parliamentary seats less than two years agoa diminutive woman
president of the students union would organise such a popular
resistance to Hindutva politicians? Who would have thought
that despite deploying the heavy artillery of cabinet ministers
against five Dalit students of the University of Hyderabad to
suppress their protests against discrimination on campus(es),
the issue of discrimination will actually come alive in universities
all over the country? Who would have thought that despite
being branded anti-national, a few thousand students of an
elite university would galvanise a countrywide debate on
nationalism and its discontents?
Just as the JNU protests are not merely about that university
but a reflection of students standing up to defend the public university as a site of debate, of contestations and of pedagogies of
subversion and empowerment, the students protests all over
India are not just about students and universities. They are part
of the spreading rebellion of the young against the tradition of
all dead generations weigh[ing] like a nightmare on the brains
of the living. It is a part of the rebellion against patriarchal
oppressionthe demand for bekhauf aazadi raised by women
(and men) protestors in Delhi after the December 2012 gang-rape
and murder of Jyoti Pandey is not too different from the aazadi
slogans in JNU. It is part of the rebellion of the oppressed
minoritiesethnic, caste, religious or regionalof the Indian
state and its ruling caste-classes; of the determined stand of
non-political young men and women who are willing to face
death to live their love.
It is no accident that aazadi has become the rallying cry of
this rebellion. The NDA government backed by the RSS have set
the full force of their authority and state power, Canute like,
against this rising tide. This journal has always stood in solidarity
with progressive, radical voices; it has stood for critique and
freedom of thought and expression. We are confident that even
if we are in a dark hour, this country will awake, surely, into a
dawn of ever-widening freedom of thought and action.
april 30, 2016

vol lI no 18

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly