This is a guest post by NIYATI SHARMA AND SNIGDHA KUMAR
The latest in a line of institutions to fall victim to the BJP government’s campaign against “cultural pollution” is The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML). The agenda is loud and clear – anything which ‘pollutes’ the current government’s preferred way of life and thinking will be done away with. Bans such as the recent ones on porn and meat are the most obvious instruments at the disposal of the government to achieve this goal. The more effective interventions, however, are not those which instantly deny people their choices and freedoms. Presented instead as minor improvements and renovations, interventions in art, history and academic institutions allow the government to introduce subtle long term changes – changes with the capacity to access and alter our very being.
Given the enormity of these interventions in the long run then, it is particularly curious how the clear recent attempts to take over academic institutions such as the ICHR, FTII and now NMML have managed to raise only a few eyebrows while the bans on porn (and meat to an extent) have met with much protest and were subsequently lifted. Perhaps this is because such spaces appear to be remote islands inhabited only by those interested in history, film and/or academic research. Only such an impression can explain the rather meek public debate and outcry that these clearly targeted changes have generated.
I first met Anandarajan when I was fourteen years old, a few weeks before I was to join St John’s. Anandarajan was introduced to me at a family function, as my would-be principal. The first thing I noticed about him was the total lack of aloofness. His response was ‘I say, I was a classmate of your mother at St John’s, and she was the only girl in the class whom I was scared of’ (which my mother vehemently denied!). In the years that followed I came to know Anandarajan more closely, first as a teacher, and then as a close family friend. In those days at St John’s the first year Advanced Level classes occupied the open sheds opposite the Vice-Principal’s house, and everyday from my classroom I would see Anandarajan walk purposefully across the school grounds from his residence to the principal’s office. If it was a Monday, I would see him again a few minutes later, wearing a black academic-gown walking up the stage of Peto Hall to chair the assembly. I used to enjoy those Monday morning assemblies, as they provided a welcome reprieve from the stress of cramming for exams. Anandarajan would invite interesting speakers to address us, from Hindu mystics to those who spoke on more earthy topics such as pollution and war in the Middle East. Ironically for many of us in those days, war was something that happened only in distant places. If there were no outside speakers Anandarajan would address the assembly himself. It was on one such occasions that I learnt a value that I have cherished ever since then. It is in Anandarajan’s own words: “Always defend yourself. Never let anyone accuse you falsely – not anyone – not even me. If you let that happen, part of the blame is yours”. 
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 