[ In a dramatic new development, four students, Umar Khalid (ex-DSU), Anirban (ex-DSU), Rama Naga and Asutosh (AISA), from amongst the list of ‘students wanted by the police’ resurfaced on the night of Sunday, 21 February, and stayed with their fellow students till the early hours of Monday, February 22 on the JNU campus. Reportedly, they are still on campus, with their fellow students. One of them, Umar Khalid, spoke at a large gathering in front of the administration block, where all protesting students have been meeting. The gathering was also addressed by the Jawahar Lal Nehru Students’ Union (JNUSU) vice-president and All India Students Association (AISA) activist, Shehla Rashid Shora (against whom there are no charges made out by the police at the moment). The police, did not enter the campus at that time, given the very large number of students who had gathered in solidarity with their ‘wanted’ friends. The statements of the JNUSU vice president, Shehla Rashid Shora, and of Umar Khalid (who is one of students ‘wanted’ by the police), were recorded by a correspondent of the online portal, Catchnews.com during the early hours of Monday, 22nd February, as they addressed the gathered students. We are sharing those recordings, with thanks to Catchnews.com, with our transcript/translation of what was said by both Shehla and Umar. As is clear from both statements, the students are not in hiding, they are offering peaceful resistance, and the charges of sedition against them are utterly without foundation. Listen, and read, for yourselves.]
All posts by Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Oxford University Members and Alumni in Solidarity with JNU: Oxford Students, Faculty and Alumni
Guest Post by students, faculty and alumni of Oxford University, UK
We, the undersigned members and alumni of the University of Oxford, stand firmly in solidarity with fellow students, teachers and scholars at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). We condemn the ongoing persecution of the student community in JNU, in particular the arrest of JNU Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar under sedition charges. We protest the use of institutional and state machinery to stifle dissent on campuses, and the attempt to persecute those whose views do not conform to the narrow narratives of ‘nationalism’, ‘nationhood’ and ‘Indian culture’ promoted and endorsed by the ruling party. We view the crackdown in JNU in a continuum with the use of state machinery to clamp down on dissenting views and ideologies on campuses, most prominently at the FTII, Jadavpur University, IIT-Madras and the University of Hyderabad (UoH). We would like to point out that it was a similar witchhunt, backed by state authority, that led to the suicide of Dalit scholar and student leader of the Ambedkar Students’ Association, Rohith Vemula. We also stand in solidarity with the ongoing rally hunger strike at UoH and the struggles of the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice, demanding justice for Rohith Vemula.
Sambit Patra Flying the Tricolour on Times Now, in JNU and on Iwo Jima – History Re-Imagined (Once Again) by the BJP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQNDEwBirLg
A recent ‘Newshour’ non-debate on Times Now on whether or not an order emanating from the Ministry of Human Resources Development to erect 207 feet high steel flagpoles and giant tricolour flags in Central Universities across India featured a wonderful intervention by Sambit Patra, BJP spokesman and digital magician extraordinaire.
#AssamwithJNU – Thousands take to the Streets in Assam: Bonojit Hussain
Last two days had seen several #AssamWithJNU #JusticeForRohith protests and rallies demanding justice for Rohith Vemula and against the assault on JNU, police crackdown and arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar under the charges of sedition, media trial of Umar Khalid, and the undeclared emergency in the country.
Continue reading #AssamwithJNU – Thousands take to the Streets in Assam: Bonojit Hussain
Undeclared Emergency? State Repression from JNU students to HONDA workers: Nayan Jyoti
Guest Post by Nayan Jyoti
[ Even as the repression on students in universities, continues, the BJP regimes in Rajasthan and Haryana have attacked peaceful assemblies of young workers in the National Capital Region (NCR). This calls for widening and deepening the resistance against the Modi regime, whose fascist character is now nakedly visible. When the state starts hunting down workers and students at the same time, it is time for workers and students (and their friends) to stand united together and resist the repression by all means necessary and possible. We are posting below an account by Nayan Jyoti, a young activist, of the violence unleashed by the BJP governments in Rajasthan and Haryana, in collusion with factory managements, using the brute force of armed police and hired thugs in the last few days, with the hope that it will add crucially to our understanding of what exactly is going on in India.The Modi regime is in a deep crisis, and the only way the BJP (both at the centre and at the provincial levels) knows how to respond is through violence. Modi is the best student of Indira Gandhi in Indian politics, and he is following totally in her footsteps, invoking exactly the same ‘Anti-National’ tag, especially in terms of the way she led up to the declaration of the emergency in 1975. Things are different now, but also very similar. This is the beginning, as the author of this post says, of an undeclared emergency. The difference between a declared and an undeclared emergency appears at the moment to be only a formality. It is time we saw through the veil of this formality.]
We #standwithJNU and raised our united voices against State repression and witch-hunt of students for #righttodissent since 9th February. On 18th February, more than 15,000 people said so clearly in Delhi and pointed out that this has directly followed in a coordinated manner more recently from the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula in HCU by the anti-Dalit administrations under influence of the BJP, and right-wing attack on FTII students to completely control freedom of thought and expression earlier and the murder of progressive intellectuals by right-wing groups in recent times.
As this terrorizing and silencing of progressive voices, students and intellectuals goes on by both the BJP government and its police-administration from the top and the RSS vigilante groups on the streets, another much more brutal crackdown on thousands of workers has just happened and continues in the Haryana-Rajasthan border.
Delhi Stands With JNU Students and Against the Evil Modi Regime
“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are...”-
Bertholt Brecht
This afternoon saw an amazing, uplifting show of peaceful, joyful strength by students, young people, teachers, friends in Delhi, in support of JNU, in memory of Rohith Vemula, in solidarity with Kanhaiya, Umar and all the students in JNU who are being so stellar in their principled opposition to this evil, venal Modi regime. Reports of massive protests are coming in from Kolkata, Russia to and elsewhere. Something is changing in the air.
It was a perfect spring afternoon, overcast like our times, but breezy like our morale. There must have been at least 15,000 people on the march today. We met old and long lost friends and made new ones.
The gathering was totally peaceful. Young women and men, student profits from JNU in the eighties, grey haired, felt young again as their student held aloft flowers, flags, signs and homemade banners. Everyone looked their best, as if they had come to a massive street party.
It was so infectious, the mood this afternoon, such a contrast to the vile bad temper of the men who attacked Kanhaiya and his supporters two days in a row at the Patiala House Courts two days in a row that the difference between two entirely different visions of politics was palpable on your skin. The contrast sent a clear message to all our senses.
The RSS-ABVP-BJP brand of politics is diseased. It’s on its last legs and that is why it is so desperate. It cannot perform, it has no ideas, it is morally and culturally bankrupt.
Universities are in crisis and all that the bad TV actress who makes a joke of her ministry (HRS) every day can think of today while thousands March against her and her boss is about sticking giant flagpoles into the ground and stitching gigantic silk shrouds for her government and her party.
Modi, Rajnath and Manusmriti Irani should quake in fear. Their time is up.
Very proud of JNU students and the people of Delhi today.
#StandwithJNU #StandwithKanhaiya
#StandwithUmar
#Standwithallstudents
#NowitchHuntofStudents
Solidarity with JNU and Conversations on Kashmir: JKCCS
Guest Post by Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society
Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) expresses its solidarity with the striking students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. We have watched with a sense of horror and dismay, the violent criminalizing of student democracy and dissent, not just at Jawaharlal Nehru University but across Indian campuses in the recent past. Having long and intimate knowledge of violent repression and legalized impunity that Indian state is capable of, especially against those it considers ‘anti-national’ we are not surprised by these events, but have a special empathy with all who suffer its horrors. We demand the release of all student dissenters and political prisoners in the custody of the Indian state, and an end to acts of policing and surveillance on campuses, and targeting of students on the basis of political beliefs and speech.
The Kashmiri students in different colleges and universities in India, who have always faced discrimination and intimidation time to time, are now feeling the extreme regressive and oppressive means used by right wing groups and the government. After being hounded, Kashmiri students have begun leaving Delhi. There are several places where the landlords, in whose properties Kashmiri students were renting flats, have asked the students to vacate. These experiences of Kashmiri students are part of the larger reality faced by Kashmiri youth in Jammu and Kashmir and in India. The voices of dissent in Jammu and Kashmir have been dealt with administrative detentions under Public Safety Act, illegal detentions, torture, surveillance and killings by armed forces including the most recent one of Asif and Shaista at Pulwama on 14th of February.
We also view with alarm, the reports about the cynical use of Kashmiri students studying in Delhi as hostages in the politically illegitimate process of government formation in Srinagar.
We are dismayed that the public narrative about the recent events has often descended into disputes over Indian ‘patriotism’ and the shrill condemnation of a few ‘fringe’ ‘radical’ ‘traitors’ for ‘irresponsible’ slogans. These sentiments are neither mere slogans nor represent the ‘fringe’ in Kashmir, the very place they were made in reference to. As Kashmiris, we believe that the right to self-determination is inseparable from the right to political association, dissent and free expression, and these rights cannot be selectively asserted or upheld. In the competitive public proclamations of nationalistic credentials, what has been lost is that courageous act of defiant solidarity with the Kashmiri people’s struggle for justice and self-determination, that lies at the heart of these debates. Despite the disavowals and the state repression, the solidarity with the political rights of the Kashmiris is growing and spreading, as events in Jadavpur University demonstrate. We acknowledge the emerging spaces in Indian civil society to converse on the question of Kashmir, beyond nationalist framings. We hold out hope for future alliances with students, groups and individuals willing to engage in honest conversations, in which they alone do not determine the boundaries of what can or cannot be said, thought or felt.
Spokesperson
JKCCS
Letter of Solidarity to the Students of JNU, India: Democratic Students’ Alliance, Pakistan
Guest Post by Democratic Students’ Alliance, Pakistan
17th February, 2016
Dear Student friends of JNU, Delhi
The issue of academic freedom is one that is tied to the essence of education itself: to think, to question, to speak and probe, to understand, to challenge and to learn.
The strangulation of political and academic freedoms is a dark hallmark of despotic and authoritarian societies and governments which aim to silence and subjugate. State intrusion in intellectual spaces is an assault on democratic rights and liberties; academic freedom must not be subordinated to state agendas. We believe that political freedoms are central to a democratic state and that their suspension leads to nothing but danger.
A letter to Umar Khalid: Pallavi Paul
Guest Post by Pallavi Paul
Dear Umar,
My name is Pallavi Paul and like you I am a PhD student at JNU.
I write this letter to apologize to you. What thoughts must be crossing your mind and that of your family, friends and comrades- as bloodthirsty, jingoist goons are on a shameless head hunt for you and your friends. I apologize to you for the poverty of imagination of a state that brands you as anti-national, while continues to trample on the rights and bodies of those living within its borders from Pulwama to New Delhi to Hyderabad. I apologize to you that you find yourself in a society where to echo the feelings of thousands of Kashmiris, to think of yourself as first devoted to the idea of justice before any arbitrary construct of the nation, to be moved by suffering, to critique capital punishment – is considered an act of terrorism. In a beautiful post on Facebook your sister lovingly called you a “communist paagal”. I apologize to you that this current oppressive climate is too cramped for your magical madness. The imagination of a beautiful world which has place not only for sangh certified, brahminically privileged, self- affirming ‘Indian-ness’, but for everyone who has found themselves left outside of this fold- the landless, the stateless, those without the protections of caste, class, religion, gender or nation.
What a wonderful name you chose for the event on the 9th of February – Country Without A Post Office. After, one of Agha Shahid Ali’s most haunting works, which references a time in the 1990s when no letters were delivered to Kashmir. There was no way for people to talk to or hear one another. You chose to think about the punishment accorded to Afsal Guru, along with this history. Your efforts to create a conversation, a debate on what it means to take a human life, is today being branded as evidence of your anti-nationalism. I apologize to you for the amnesia and the fragile ego of this country, which is unable to revisit its history without a shred of doubt or criticality. Where the only way to serve the cause of the country is by mouthing its praises and letting it rot in its own status quo and not by bringing to it newer questions, possibilities and challenges.
Many television channels like Times Now, News X, Zee have been ruthless and vicious in trying to establish links between you and terrorist organizations like the Jaish- e- Mohammad. I am sorry that you are living in a country where your name makes it so easy for this connection to be made. While comrade Kanhaiya is still in Police Custody fighting the preposterous charge of sedition, even as I write this to you- he has at the very minimum the assurance that he will not be linked to an Islamist Terrorist Organization. You, dear Umar do not even have that. Even that you are a self proclaimed atheist is not guarantee against prejudiced links being made between the religion you were born into and your political beliefs. That you made a choice outside of religion and the various forms of violence that its fundamentalist interpretations throw up, has been drowned in the noise being whipped up by vigilante, self proclaimed ‘nationalists’.
Like every storm this too will pass. The arrogance of this regime will be its undoing. Today there is a report in the Hindu, where the Central Government has denied receiving any report linking you to terrorist outfits. It is being widely shared on social media with the hashtag #weareumarkhalid. We know that your social media account has been hacked , but be assured that many voices are also rising in your support. I do not know when or whether you will be able to read this letter, but I hope that whenever we meet we will be able to celebrate freedom, justice and the spirit of critique. The seasons will change and the breeze will blow more merrily.
Take care of yourself dear comrade, the struggle is on.
Lal Salaam!
Pallavi Paul is a filmmaker and a PhD candidate at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Break Down the Barriers: Reading Robin T, Bhimrao and the Nation State in JNU
Jai Bhim, Joy Guru, Lal Salaam
Two of the greatest, crazies, most beautiful minds produced by the Indian subcontinent in the Twentieth Century would have been arrested by the police and attacked by the RSS, as ‘Anti-Nationals’, perhaps rightly so, had they been alive today.After all, they never stopped being young.
One of them was tall, you know him – the big guy, with glasses, always dressed to the nines, (no itchy khadi or scratchy khaki would do for him) .
The other had long hair and a beard, and even became a contemporary artist in his old age.
The cops, or thugs-in-law of the RSS might even have said “saala JNU ka lagta hai” (looks like this ***** is from JNU).
So, here they are – Bhimrao Ambedkar (Baba Saheb), and Rabindranath Tagore.
Once again, Jai Bhim, Joy Guru. And pass the ammunition.
Continue reading Break Down the Barriers: Reading Robin T, Bhimrao and the Nation State in JNU
Statement of Solidarity with Student Protests in India : Students of the University of Chicago
We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the arbitrary, unconstitutional, and anti-democratic actions of the BJP/RSS/ABVP/Delhi Police continuum at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus. We demand an immediate end to all police action on campus, a withdrawal of all frivolous charges against the President of JNU Students’ Union, Kanhaiya Kumar, and other students, as well as an end to the campaign of harassment and intimidation against students at the university. Continue reading Statement of Solidarity with Student Protests in India : Students of the University of Chicago
Some thoughts on love in times of hate – from a JNU student : Pallavi Paul
Guest Post by Pallavi Paul
As I comb through the deluge of responses and opinions that have been circulating on television, social media, newspapers and conversations over the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, there is one particular fear that sticks out repeatedly. The fear of JNU being a ‘transformative’ space. Where young and innocent minds are changed. The question that follows then is- changed into what? Even as we see ABVP students vociferously defending police action on all media platforms, the Sanskrit department continuing with classes in spite of the call for strike in support of Kanhaiya and faculty members like Hari Ram Mishra (CSS) issuing media statements against the student agitation currently underway- the simple formula that JNU transforms its students into ‘anti-national’ elements (going by the current interpretation of the term) begins to appear erroneous. In addition to having a culture of critical thinking, debate, questioning and radical left politics – JNU has also had an equally dynamic history of Hindutva and Brahaminical politics. For every protest on Afsal Guru there is a Guru Dakhshina Karyakram, for every Sitaram Yechury addressing students there is an Ashok Singhal (who visited the campus in 2002 even amidst intense protests). This fear then, if seen clearly begins to appear more and more abstract. It bases itself on a ‘sense’ of the campus- rather than its actual political fiber. Infact if one hears carefully it is the larger fear of things changing, things changing irreversibly.
Continue reading Some thoughts on love in times of hate – from a JNU student : Pallavi Paul
The Tendency of the Price of Young Life to Fall and the Hope that it May Rise
The war on young people continues. In this post we will only consider it’s arithmetic. Not even its algebra, simply its arithmetic.
I am prompted to do this by a strange acoustic co-incidence. While standing as part of a cordon of faculty and friends protecting the students of JNU on the public meeting on the 13th of April from a handful of ABVP activists who liked invoking blood and bullets in their slogans, I head one that stayed with me, and made me revisit a question that often bothers me.
This was the slogan ‘Hanumanthappa hum sharminda hain, tere qatil zinda hain’. (‘Hanumanthappa we are ashamed, your murders are still alive’ ). Lance Naik Hanumanthappa, as we all know now, was a thirty two year old soldier of the Indian army who survived six days under an avalanche on the Siachen Glacier in Kashmir and then died of multiple organ failure in a Delhi military hospital. His young body must have had a tremendous and a passionate yearning for life. Sometimes I think of what a fine father or husband or lover or friend a man who loved life so must have been, could have continued to have been.
Continue reading The Tendency of the Price of Young Life to Fall and the Hope that it May Rise
Spring Comes to JNU : Love, Laughter and Rage
February is a beautiful time of the year in Delhi. It inaugurates Basant, spring, the season for love. And it is made more beautiful by an incandescent, insurgent spirit, that spreads in the air like a loving contagion, especially around what the Hindu Right rehearses for months on end to spoil – the new found festival of Valentine’s Day.
Traditionally (or at least since as long ago as the late twentieth century CE), on Valentine’s Day, the loony Hindu right goes looking for lovers in the parks of Delhi and tries to ply its own line in the extortion trade. This time, they have been joined by some big guns. The Delhi police descended on some young people belonging to a theatre group who had stepped out to have tea during a poetry reading at the IGNCA on the grounds that they ‘looked like they were JNU students’. Meanwhile, their boss, the Honorable Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh (who deserves a Bharat Ratna all by himself for skills as a performance artist) regaled a press conference with a poker faced comic act – his revelation of the Lashkar e Taiba’s links to the JNU protests on the basis of the discovery of a fake twitter handle. The fact that Rajnath Singh still has his job is because his boss Narendra Modi, our ‘dear leader’, is the chief architect of the ‘Fake in India’ campaign.
One needs love, and laughter, plenty of laughter, to survive these times, and the antics of these men. Over the last two days, it is love, laughter, sorrow and rage, in equal proportion that have been most evident in the JNU campus in Delhi. Their signs were evident again, appropriately, yesterday, on Valentine’s Day. A student population of thousands has been able to transform its rage at the capitulation of the recently appointed vice-chancellor and his cronies to the diktats of an incompetent home minister and his minions in the Delhi Police apparatus into a deep and abiding sense of good humoured solidarity. This is demonstrated by the support that they have readily offered Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of their students union, who is currently detained, facing ridiculous charges of sedition, and several other students, including some JNUSU office bearers, who the police are still reportedly hunting for. The hashtag #StandwithJNU has gone viral, spreading, connecting, bringing people together like the sudden awakening of spring after a cruel winter. What better way can there be of celebrating Valentine’s Day than to declare, en masse, a love for liberty, and for learning?
Continue reading Spring Comes to JNU : Love, Laughter and Rage
Statement by Educators, Intellectuals, Artists and Writers on Police Action in JNU
We, the undersigned, (educators, professors, intellectuals, writers and artists), are shocked by the appalling conduct of Delhi Police at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi yesterday. We also condemn the irresponsible sloganeering by some people at the fringes of a gathering on the JNU campus to mark the third anniversary of the execution of Afzal Guru. We believe that such calls to ‘war, until the destruction of India’ erode the gravity of any serious discussion on any political question, be it capital punishment, human rights or even the question of self-determination. Such conduct is shameful, regardless of who does it, and deserving of the sharpest criticism.
That said, the only way to counter such incidents, when they occur, is through a deepening of dialogue, not through police action. The police has no business to enter places of learning and harass students (including students who were clearly trying to defuse the situation and to take a stand against the irresponsible elements who gave the objectionable slogans) when there had been no breach of peace.
We condemn the arrest of Kanhaiyya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union on trumped up charges of sedition and demand that he be released immediately. Kanhaiyya’s public statements, which are widely available, clearly show that sedition is the last thing that you can charge him with. The University Authorities must take steps to ensure that the witch hunt that is ensuing against other students must also cease immediately. We demand that there be no more arrests of students. We are saddened by the new JNU Vice Chancellor’s readiness to submit to the diktats of the police, and we condemn the totally outrageous statements by the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and the Minister for Human Resources Development Smriti Irani which virtually declare war on universities as spaces for dissent and debate.
We demand an unconditional withdrawal of police personnel from campuses, and reiterate our support and solidarity with the students, faculty and staff of JNU, and with students everywhere in India who are pursuing a courageous resistance against the ongoing assault on higher education unleashed by the BJP government.
Aditya Nigam, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
Ashis Nandy, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
Bharti Kher, Artist, Delhi
Debjani Sengupta, Associate Professor, Department of English, Indraprastha College, Delhi University
Gauri Gill, Artist, Delhi
Gayatri Sinha, Curator, Delhi
Geeta Kapur, Curator, Delhi
Iram Ghufran, Filmmaker, Delhi
Jeet Thayil, Poet, Delhi
K. Satchidanandan, Poet, Delhi
Karen Gabriel, Department of English, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University
Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum, Bangaluru
Moinak Biswas, Professor, Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Nancy Adajania, Curator, Mumbai
Nandini Datta, Associate Professor, Miranda House, Delhi University
Neha Choksi, Artist, Mumbai
Nivedita Menon, Professor, Centre for Comparative Politics & Political Theory, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
P.K.Vijayan, Department of English, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University
Pallavi Paul, Artist/Filmmaker, Delhi
Parnal Chirmuley, Associate Professor, Centre of German Studies, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
Pratiksha Baxi, Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
Rajarshi Dasgupta, Assistant Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
Rajeev Bhargava, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
Ravi Sundaram, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
Ravi Vasudevan, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
Romila Thapar, Historian, Emeritus Professor, Jawharalal Nehru University
S. Kalidas, Critic, Delhi / Goa
Sahej Rehal, Artist, Mumbai
Sabina Kidwai, Associate Professor, AJ Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi
Sabeena Gadihoke, Associate Professor, AJ Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi
Sanjay Kak, Filmmaker, Delhi
Sarnath Banerjee, Artist, Delhi / Berlin
Saumyajit Bhattacharya, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, Fellow, Centre for the Studies of Social Sciences, Kolkata
Shohini Ghosh, Professor, AJ Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi
Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Artist, Raqs Media Collective, Delhi
Subodh Gupta, Artist, Delhi
Sumit Sarkar, Historian, Formerly Professor, Department of History, Delhi University
Tanika Sarkar, Historian, Formerly Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
Vivan Sundaram, Artist, Delhi
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JNUSU Statement on the Police Action and ABVP slander in JNU: JNUSU
Guest Post by Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla Rashid Shora and Rama Naga, office bearers, JNUSU
We, the office-bearers of JNUSU, are appalled at the way an uproar has been created over the 9th February incident that happened in JNU and the way the entire incident is being used to malign JNU students and the democratic traditions of JNU.
At the outset, we condemn the divisive slogans (‘bharat ke tukde honge hazar’) that were raised by some people on that day. It is important to note that the slogans were not raised by members of Left organizations or JNU students. In fact, when such sloganeering took place, it was the Left-progressive organizations and students, including JNUSU office-bearers who asked the organizers of the programme to ask the people who were raising the slogans to stop slogans that are regressive. The divisive slogans and the ideology behind it has never been a part of the progressive tradition that JNU and the JNUSU uphold. On the contrary, the unity of the people of different parts of the country in challenging divisive, authoritarian, anti-people and anti-student forces is what we stand with and look up to. Even in the recent times, the JNU student community and the JNUSU have joined nation-wide students’ voice to defend the country against casteist and authoritarian power lobbies. The Left-progressive organizations were present at the programme only to ensure that no violence takes place, as ABVP had called in hooligans from DU to disrupt the program and the general atmosphere in the campus. And so, to interpret our presence as endorsement of some divisive slogans which were raised by some (and was protested and stopped) is extremely mischievous and manipulative. Continue reading JNUSU Statement on the Police Action and ABVP slander in JNU: JNUSU
CPDR Condemns Arrests of JNUSU President and Delhi University Professor under Sedition Charges : Anand Teltumbde
Guest Post by Anand Teltumbde
CPDR condemns the arrests of Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNSU) and Prof SAR Gilani of Delhi University by the Delhi Police today (12 February 2016) at the behest of the Home Minister Rajnath Singh on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy for holding a protest demonstration on February 9th against the judicial hanging of Afzal Guru, three years ago.
The BJP Government is completely exposed in using the state power in support of its student’s wing- Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which was totally isolated in the campuses all over the country in the flare up over the institutional killing of Rohith Vemula. Instead of learning a lesson from this episode, it has chosen to use its fascist fangs in suppressing the democratic activities of students in university campuses.
CPDR does not hold any brief for those who indulge in anti-national activities but certainly objects to gross misuse of this label to suppress democratic rights of the students. In view of the fact that the hangings of both Afzal Guru as well as Yakub Memon have not been beyond controversy, the students’ questioning them cannot be termed sedition or anti-national activity. It is the same fascist definition of anti-nationalism that had prompted the Hyderabad University administration to clumsily punish the five Dalit students which led to one of them, Rohith Vemula, committing suicide. In both, the sinister role of ABVP and BJP in making the university administrations to crawl and police to terrorize the non-ABVP students is completely exposed.
The higher education campuses are not factories to produce inert charge to feed corporate mills. They are fundamentally expected to shape future thought leaders of the country endowed with critical faculties for sustenance of democracy. Analyzing, reviewing, criticizing, protesting, agitating and being alive to issues of national life are an integral part of this process. It cannot be suppressed by labeling it sedition or anti-national activity. Exercising checks on the Government is the right of people that is subsumed in democracy and cannot be subverted by such sentimental ploys. The students who partake in such activities must rather be respected for their concern for the future of the country than those who opportunistically choose to be on the side of the state and exhibit their pseudo patriotism. It is sad that the so called nationalists who blame every evil to colonial powers shamelessly cling to colonial provisions of sedition and other such draconian acts to terrorize people.
In the light of the above, CPDR demands immediate release of both the JNUSU President, Kanhaiya Kumar and Prof S. A. R Geelani and quashing of Sedition charges against them and unknown persons.
Dr Anand Teltumbde
General Secretary, CPDR, Maharashtra
12 February 2016
Restore Normalcy in JNU, Release All Detained Students, Delhi Police Quit JNU
In an unprecedented and draconian move, Delhi Police personnel entered the precincts of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi yesterday afternoon, and began a search operation based on malicious complaints against ‘unnamed persons’ filed by a Delhi BJP leader in response to an event titled – ‘Country Without a Post Office’ – organized by some students to commemorate and protest against the execution of Afzal Guru on February 9th.
Continue reading Restore Normalcy in JNU, Release All Detained Students, Delhi Police Quit JNU
Operation Ekalavya : Jhandewala, New Delhi, Rohith Vemula’s Birthday, 30th January 2016
Dear young friends who went to Jhandewala on Rohith Vemula’s birthday,
And all those who were there in spirit, in Delhi, Hyderabad and elsewhere. I am writing to you because I think you might have all taken things much further than anyone can quite imagine or understand at present.
I am writing to you, for today and for tomorrow, so that every time in the future that young people gather to celebrate their friend Rohith’s birthday, we might all begin to have a different kind of conversation. So that the boundaries between mourning and celebration, between anger and joy may always remain blurred enough for us to know what to do next, each time.
Since you had a close encounter with the police and their colleagues in the RSS on Rohith’s birthday, I want to spend a little time thinking about them with you. Bear with me. I sincerely hope we will not have to bear with them for much longer.
Farewell to Vidrohi: Pallavi Paul
Guest Post by Pallavi Paul
[ Rama Shankar Yadav ‘Vidrohi’, was a familiar figure for students, especially in Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. He was a friend, a companion, a comrade, a mentor. Though rusticated many years ago from JNU, where he had been a student, for his participation in a protest, he had never left the campus of JNU, and had become, over the years, a beloved feature of campus life. His visceral poetry, often heard at protest gatherings, was passed from person to person by word of mouth. A few days ago, he died while marching with his beloved student friends in a protest against cuts in education in Delhi. Pallavi Paul, a filmmaker and artists, who made short films featuring Vidrohi, remembers him in this tribute..]
Yesterday, as I was looking out a window of an old house in Ballygunge, Kolkata- my phone buzzed. I ignored it. I was in the middle of telling a friend how happy I was to be away from Delhi for sometime. How the sights and smells of a different city were rejuvenating. The feeling of not having a ‘special connection’ with anyone or anything here felt liberating.
Much later, I opened the message from my friend Uday. ‘Vidrohiji passed away’, he wrote. Just three words. In our conversations with him, Vidrohiji had often spoken about his death. We had revisited the scenario over and over again. Like a dream or a film – it had a grand setting. He had told us “Now that you are recording me, i know that i will say goodbye in the most glorious way possible. Very few people can say that about their death, while they are still alive.” On another day he had said to us, “As my fame has increased, so have the dangers. Now what i need is guarantee. Your records are guarantee against that largest threat of being killed. I say to my enemies, that if you want to kill me – then shoot me in the eyes. Because i will keep staring back at you till my last breath. Your records will help me stare back at them even after I am gone. “
An ‘Anti National’ Response from JNU to the ‘Nationalist’ RSS: Pratim, Gargi and Lenin
Guest Post by Pratim, Gargi and Lenin.
As writers, historians, scientists, film makers, poets, actors and others return their awards in protest against the rising intolerance and anti-rational climate in this country, we in JNU keep stocking up accolades of a different kind. These accolades are ones which are very generously gifted to us from the RSS and its affiliates. These accolades come in more than fifty shades, only highlighting the deep seated trouble that these folks have in seeing this University up to them, despite their attempts to tarnish it. A few days back the ever-so-absurd/islamophobic/irrational Subramaniam Swamy endowed JNU students with the honours of being ‘Jehadis’, ‘Naxal’ and ‘Anti-National’.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 