SOUTH ASIAN UNIVERSITY FACULTY ASSOCIATION (SAUFA)

Statement in solidarity with Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association (JNUTA) and student community

We the faculty members of the South Asian University are deeply disturbed by the developments at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in the last few days. President of the JNU Students Union was arrested with the charges of sedition and some more students are being looked out for by the police. As reported it was the fall out of an incident involving a programme organized by some students in which some slogans were made which were alleged to be “anti-national”.

We the undersigned are of the view that universities are meant to be places for critical thinking and ideas which may sometimes contradict with the views of the powers that be or may go against the dominant and established views. We understand that freedom of speech and expression comes with certain reasonable restrictions. However, as long as it remains at the level of expression and exchange of ideas and views without preventing the possibility of expression of counter ideas and views it should be seen as healthy form of dissent in a democracy. It is equally so in a democratic country like India. We feel the highhanded involvement of the government and its police machinery in JNU as interference in the academic autonomy of a University which, in our view, would not augur well for any democratic country.

We also strongly condemn the attack on JNU teachers, students and journalists in the Patiala House court premises. We therefore stand in solidarity with the JNUTA which along with the JNU student community has taken the right step of defending the academic autonomy of the University.

Deepa Sinha, President, SAUFA

Yuba Raj Pokharel, Secretary, SAUFA

15 February 2016

DEMOCRATIC TEACHERS NETWORK (HYDERABAD)

CONDEMN THE FALSE CASE FILED AGAINST JNUSU PRESIDENT KANHAIYA! OPPOSE THIS UNDECLARED EMERGENCY BY FASCIST COMMUNAL BJP!

We condemn in the strongest terms the police raid upon student hostels in Jawaharlal Nehru University. JNU Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, a charismatic voice of the democratic aspirations of students, was lifted by plain clothes police in what appeared to bystanders to be a vigilante attack rather than a police action. Male police have been breaking into and entering hostels including women’s hostels, in a blatant violation of the rule of law. The fact that a student leader was arrested on charges of sedition, a draconian colonial law intended to break the Indian National freedom struggle, demonstrates the anti-national character of the police and the fascist government directing them. The case was filed directly by BJP MP Maheish Girri, who is proudly taking forward the deadly persecution of marginalised people that has come to characterize BJP MPs and MLAs – other examples include Sangeet Som who incited the Muzaffarnagar riots and the lynch mob against Aqlakh Ahmad (despite himself being a beef exporter), and Ramchander Rao and Bandaru Dattatreya who hounded dalit student Rohith Vemula to death.

Further, Kanhaiya has been at the forefront of protests before the MHRD against their shutting down non-NET fellowships for University students, and against their role in the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula. Is the education of students, the democratization of universities, an anti-national cause? Is it anti-national to oppose the death penalty – which has been abolished by 140 other countries – the majority of countries in the world? Are those countries acting against their own national interests when they abolished death penalty? What kind of nation believes the death of a human being is necessary for national integrity?

The particular islamophobic blood-thirsty campaign that the ABVP-RSS and their paid media outlets such as Zee News, etc. are running against Umar Khalid, one of the organisers of the protest meeting at JNU, demonising his Muslim identity, yet again displays their blatant hatred towards anyone who is not a caste Hindu. This hatred is extended to all those who have been in the forefront of the struggle against Fascism. This falls right in line with the killings of Prof. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabolkar, Ujjain University professor Dr. Sabharwal, and many others, by the Sangh Parivar. This is in addition to other acts of vandalism such as the attack on a meeting regarding Justice for Rohith Vemula at Mahatma Gandhi University, Nalgonda, and similar other attacks on protest gatherings at Lucknow University, Ambedkar University, brutal beatings assisted by the police on protesting students at Delhi, etc. The Haryana Central University in fact even filed FIRs against its own students who had only taken out a candle march in the memory of Rohith, accusing them of “anti-national activities” and has banned all protests in future.

The unfolding fascist face of the BJP is also evident when we consider that the last time a JNUSU president was arrested was during the Emergency period from 1975-77. If student leaders can be arbitrarily picked up under colonial laws, another Emergency under these communal fascists is not far away. The general public should realise the growing spread of undemocratic RSS control over every supposedly independent and autonomous space. The JNU Vice-Chancellor is an example of this trend, being a person who is comfortable attending “science events” organised by RSS-related organization, Vijnana Bharati, despite the profoundly unscientific statements made by RSS members including the current Prime Minister. The VC’s statement about this event reveals both his bias and his ignorance of constitutional law; he seems to not be aware of Article 19 of the Constitution which upholds freedom of speech and association. A constitutional bench of 5 Supreme Court judges has examined the Sedition Act in Kedar Nath Singh vs. State of Bihar (AIR 1962 SC 955), and concluded that comments, “however strongly worded, expressing disapprobation of the actions of Government”, under which Kanhaiya has been charged, “without exciting those feelings which generate the inclination to cause public disorder by acts of violence, would not be penal”. Several other judgments have upheld this distinction between criticism, however strongly worded, and an incitement to “imminent lawless action”. It is notable that Mr. Sangeet Som is more guilty of inciting “imminent lawless action” than anyone else mentioned in this statement.

Over the last one and half years, we have seen planned takeover of Central Institutions by the RSS through either coercion and cooption of the administrative bodies supposed to govern these institutions, or through blatant use of crude force by using the police and their own vigilante groups. Since the current BJP government has come to power, it has been in the news either for the unsuitable appointments to head institutions such as ICHR, FTII; packing positions in the CBI with Gujarat cadre who have protected Modi from being charged for his murderous riot-mongering in Gujarat; or for their unapologetic interference in the functioning of the top institutions in this country to shut down the progressive voices of this country’s institutions. This includes banning the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC) in IIT-Madras, targeting the ASA students in UoH, abruptly terminating the appointment of Gandhian activist and professor Sandeep Pandey at IIT-BHU, accusing him of absurd charges of being “anti-national” and “naxalite” at the behest of the VC of Banaras Hindu University (known to be an RSS pracharak from Allahabad university), clamping down upon the campus community at Pondicherry University accusing the entire community of “Islamization”, ABVP preventing Siddharth Varadarajan from speaking at Allahabad University etc. All of these instances show a clear disregard for universities as spaces of debate, dialogue and critical thinking spaces. It also demonstrates the policy of intimidation to frighten and silence the voices of students and teachers in the universities who question the status quo. It is time that all the citizens of this country who believe in democracy make their voices heard against this muffling of dissent that is highly detrimental to the democratic functioning of this country.

We demand that the Union Government must take immediate steps to prevent the intimidation of students and to immediately withdraw this patently false case that tramples on Kanhaiya and others’ Constitutional rights. We demand that the police should immediately leave JNU campus, and that all other campuses across the country should be demilitarized, which includes the revoking of all anti-democratic circulars and bans on student activities in educational institutions. The Sedition Act, and other such colonially imposed draconian laws, must be immediately revoked by anyone who claims to have national interests in mind.

Statement of Solidarity by the Students of English Department, Delhi University Against the Police Siege of JNU

As students and research scholars at the Department of English, University of Delhi, we solemnly condemn the ongoing police and state interference at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the ghastly arrest of the JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar on the charges of sedition. This arrest and the ongoing police action in universities across the nation, in the wake of Rohith Vemula’s suicide, is orchestrating a broader spectrum of fear and a sense of students being hunted for their political and cultural views. The social moorings of such attacks are clearly castiest and patriarchal. The student body of any university rests on the founding pillars of a free sharing of ideas and views, which is an intricate part of higher education by any international standard. Imposition of restrictions on this aspect of education is not only against the spirit of democracy but also decidedly detrimental to the very idea of equitable learning. Further, considering that the multiple facets of higher education provide- as ideas and ideologies-the grounding necessary for the progress of any country, the violent curtailment and control of the production of these ideas is injurious to not only the space of the university but also the contested and multiple ideas of the nation. The list of violent interventions by police and student bodies on protesters in recent times is too long to be cited in full. Film and Television Institute of India saw the first wave of these interventions by the police followed by the violent crackdown upon scholars protesting against UGC in Delhi. The Rohith Vemula suicide in the University of Hyderabad was preceded by scholars being ousted from their hostel and followed by police and citizen violence upon protesters in Delhi. These Police intercessions should also be understood as the deliberate attempts by governing institutions as they are to shift the main focus of each movement from the original ideological questions driving such movements to the senselessness and brutality of these Police incursions. In effect, a swift and complete opposition to such crackdowns is necessary to make a counter-political statement as well. As students and scholars who look up to institutes of higher education as spaces for free speech and interaction we wish to make our voices heard so that the right to not only hold views but to develop them is not taken away from us by the use of violence or the hanging fear of it.

Signatures:

M.Phil/Ph.D

1. Ritwick Bhattacharjee
2. Azharuddin
3. Swarnima Bhattacharya
4. Kritika Chettri
5. Rachit Anand
6. Tina Das
7. Rajorshi Das
8. Somya Tyagi
9. Shruti Sareen
10. Rahul Sen
11. Laboni Bhattacharya
12. Deeksha Suri
13. Thinkal Hansan
14. Arijeet Mandal

M.A.

1. Rohan Munshi
2. Aman Nawaz
3. Saburi Pandita
4. Raushan Kamdar
5. Harleen Kaur
6. Anchal Bansal
7. Jyoti Yadav
8. Mustahseenur Rahman
9. Vaishali Gahlot
10. Tapasya Pandita
11. Brian H. Singson
12. Nang Plabita Gogoi
13. Srirupa Goswami
14. Akanksha Ahluwalia
15. Surabhi Goel
16. Mikesh Rai
17. Hitesh Kumar
18. Rachit Raj
19. Shalini Kaushik
20. Lanu Tzudir
21. Jenisha Singh
22. Gunjan Gahlot
23. Anoorag Bordoloi
24. Bibin K. Antony
25. Suma Sankar
26. Agrima Verma
27. Rajesh Mondal
28. Aman Kumar
29. Neelkanth Pan
30. Sanjukta Das Bhowmik
31. Akriti Asthana
32. Deeksha Bhardwaj
33. Asif Ali
34. Prakriti Das
35. Suvasnnigdha Sethi
36. Minuka Tamang
37. Amit Akshay Yadav
38. Raveena Kohli
39. Isha Sharma
40. Conan Karchang Doley
41. Hansa Kumari
42. Aribam Siddharth Sharma
43. Kashish Badar
44. Gaurav Kumar
45. Parul Singh
46. Bijit Sinha
47. Arpan Naithani
48. Bhaswar Faisal Khan
49. Ipshita Sengupta
50. Sangeeta Yadav
51. Rukhsar Hussain
52. Debatri Sengupta
53. Raja Boboy Chiru
54. Cheshta Rajora
55. Harjeet Kaur
56. Ariba Alam
57. Saheb Kaur
58. Raksha Thakur
59. Mansi Kaushik
60. Tanvi Hans
61. Gargee Baruah
62. Titas Bose
63. Alolika De
64. Sharanya Dutta
65. Natallia Khaniejo
66. Parikshit Singh Rawat
67. Meenakshi Shukla
68. Anna George
69. Himani Sagar
70. Recho Banjamin
71. Anshu Deshwal
72. Pragati Kandpal
73. Urvi Singh
74. Richa Sharma
75. Sushmita Sengupta
76. Tanya Jain
77. Anam Kazmi
78. Geetika Sharma
79. Shwetha Kadiyala
80. Anugya Soni
81. Pratyosh Gogoi
82. Renu Yadav
83. Snehal Annie
84. Ranjini Nair
85. Purandhya
86. Amrita Sekhar
87. Anjali Thakur
88. Nishtha Relan
89. Rashmi Singha
90. Neeharika Singh
91. Pamziuliu Gonmei
92. Rabisha Thakur
93. Ayesha Rahmat
94. Shreya Ayengar
95. Rohan Prakash
96. Gohita Basotiya
97. Elizabeth Chakma
98. Avinash K. Jha
99. Jaideep Pandey