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The Blackhole called Bastar: Aritra Bhattacharya

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This is a guest post by Aritra Bhattacharya

Unidentified persons attacked tribal leader Soni Sori on February 21, hours after she bid farewell to Shalini Gera and Isha Khandelwal, lawyers at the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group and journalist Malini Subramaniam, when they hurriedly packed their belongings and left Jagdalpur. Over the last few months, they had withstood all forms of harassment and hostility from police officials and pro-police ‘civil society’ organisations in war-torn Bastar. They had been heckled, threatened with dire consequences and targeted via a sustained vilification campaign calling for their ouster from the region on grounds that they were stalling Bastar’s ‘development’.

Beginning 8 February, the pressure intensified. Police first landed at Malini’s house and then JagLag’s residence; they intimidated their landlord and domestic help, kept them in jail for hours together over several days and threatened to implicate them in false cases. Within ten days, Malini and JagLag lawyers had to leave Jagdalpur due to relentless pressure and harassment from the police.

Continue reading The Blackhole called Bastar: Aritra Bhattacharya →

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A Close Look at Certain Words Allegedly Shouted Recently in JNU and Their Impact on Our National Intelligence: Soumyabrata Choudhury

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This is a guest post by Soumyabrata Choudhury

Polonius: “What is it you read, my lord?”

Hamlet in New Delhi, 2016: “India, Pakistan, security, sovereignty, nation, anti-national…words, words, words”

According to Sigmund Freud, when we dream, and when we suffer psychotic delusions, we treat words as pictures and things. A word’s meaning, in these conditions, becomes the shape of the word and its appearance is the same as feeling its physical impact, its blow. We cannot grasp anymore that a word refers to an object or idea outside in the world or that it can be used as a metaphor or an indirect analogy and image. We cannot even receive the rhetorical communication of words intended to persuade, exhort, transgress or insult. In each of these communications intended by an addresser we already feel physically, viscerally and as a consequence, mentally under the assault of the words of the addresser as if they are blows.

So in response we don’t persuade, exhort, transgress or insult back but instead, we curse (the upper limit of lucid  discourse in this state), punch, grab the addresser  by the throat, pull a knife or gun if we have any of these articles in our possession – or we cringe, weep, hold our heads in our hands and rock to and fro. Now it is very unlikely that in a real psychotic condition, we are able to invoke a particular law or clause of law in our favor, complain to the police and come up with a fluent image of language as justification for our actions. “We had no choice but to do what we did because the other(s) insulted our Mother India”. In a real psychotic condition, it is more likely we will be the ones to be taken away. Continue reading A Close Look at Certain Words Allegedly Shouted Recently in JNU and Their Impact on Our National Intelligence: Soumyabrata Choudhury →

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Apologise to the Nation, All of You.

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You, who shout your nationalism from the rooftops; you whose blood runs hot for “Mother India”; you who turn red with rage when contradicted; you who set agendas like patriarchs drunk on father-right; you who refuse to let another speak, you! who don a suit every night on television to disguise your cheap tricks; you who abuse your guests if they happen to be young, powerless and honest; you who bloat on adrenaline while your viewers turn to idiotic jelly; you who abuse the highest offices of this land; you who give a bad name to khaki; you who wear lawyers’ robes to beat students and teachers; you who are protected by your political masters; you who strike deals in the privacy of your offices, chambers and boardrooms; you who live by ratings and upvotes; you who tell lies so long you forget the truth; you who form bands of cowards hiding in plain sight; you who roam the streets showing your fist to all; you for whom a martyred soldier is more valuable than a living citizen; you who abuse the power that history gave you; you who mistake that accident of history for a moral right; you whose imagination of revenge always involves rape; you who have brought this country to the brink of civil war; you who speak in the name of the mythical motherland while the actual children of that land are hungry, thirsty and unemployed; you who claim this moment, this nation, this public, this history, this land. Apologise.

Apologise to those who work everyday to make this country decent; who work for too little, and for too long; those whose deaths become statistics in the great churning pots of state economists; those whose parents taught them to keep their heads down and quit an ugly fight; those who argue, debate, disagree without the urge to kill or maim their opponents; those who understand when an argument becomes too heated; those who pull back from the brink every time because they know that to be alive is not always to be right; those who reclaim the streets to protest when it’s hard, when it’s inconvenient, and when it’s dangerous, because it’s the only way to disagree; those who see that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind; those who understand and accept this land in all its confounding conflict; those who risk death to expose the powerful and corrupt; those who have no choice but to join the army to feed their families; those who laugh when there is nothing left; those who write, think and reason, and take time over all three; those who appreciate the beauty of the stars on a still night; those who make love like it’s a gift and not a right; those whose parents live after they died because they were on the wrong side at the wrong time.

Above all, you deranged “nationalists”, apologise to three fellow citizens – one born in a caste that could only speak from the protection of death; another who is languishing in jail for no crime at all; and perhaps most of all, a third who is on the run from a police none of us ever trusted. Apologise. These young people are the future of this country, not you with your bloodlust. WE are the nation, and we demand an apology from you.

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Does the Nation Really Even Want to Know? Shweta Radhakrishnan

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This is a guest post by SHWETA RADHAKRISHNAN

I noticed yesterday, a tweet from Anupam Kher where he compared state action over the events of the last few weeks, as a kind of “pest control” – required, of course to keep the house clean. His exact tweet is – “Gharon mein pest control hota hai to cockroach, keede makode ityadi bahar nikalte hain. ghar saaf hota hai. waise hi aajkal desh ka pest control chal raha hai.”

The similarity of this thought to Hitler’s on ethnic cleansing hasn’t gone unnoticed (look at Rajdeep Sardesai’s tweet and this article – http://www.jantakareporter.com/india/anupam-kher-hitler-modi/38514) and I’m sure much more will be written about it in the days to come. Anupam Kher’s inability to develop a logical argument or even notice the illogicality of his own actions has never ceased to surprise me, but the casualness with which he endorses state violence is interesting. But mere tweeting is not sedition. Do I find this tweet distasteful, offensive and also legitimizing state and mob violence? Yes, I do. Am I worried by the sentiment expressed in this tweet? Yes, I am. Am I additionally worried because this is not a man, sitting in an obscure corner somewhere, just airing his views, but a well known personality whose words seem to garner some weird kind of legitimacy because of his status as a Hindi film actor? Yes, I am. Do I think he should be arrested? No. Continue reading Does the Nation Really Even Want to Know? Shweta Radhakrishnan →

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Statement of Solidarity with JNU: University of Exeter (UK)

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We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with the students, faculty and staff of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India in their ongoing struggle against the anti-democratic incursions of the Indian state. We appeal to the elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to uphold the Indian constitution, cease the repression of democratic protest across university campuses in India, and withdraw the spurious charges of ‘sedition’ against JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar. Continue reading Statement of Solidarity with JNU: University of Exeter (UK) →

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Statement of Solidarity with the JNU Community, from the Students and Faculty at Princeton University

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We, the undersigned, condemn the undemocratic and unconstitutional actions of the BJP-ABVP-Delhi Police on the JNU campus. Continue reading Statement of Solidarity with the JNU Community, from the Students and Faculty at Princeton University →

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Statement in Support of Students and Faculty at JNU From Faculty and Affiliates of the American Uniersity of Beirut, Lebanon

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February 23, 2016

We, the undersigned faculty, students, staff, and affiliates of the American University of Beirut are highly concerned over the recent repression of free speech and undue police and legal interventions at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Continue reading Statement in Support of Students and Faculty at JNU From Faculty and Affiliates of the American Uniersity of Beirut, Lebanon →

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Statement on Behalf of Facultyand Students of O.P Jindal Global University in Solidarity With JNU

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We, the undersigned Faculty and Students from the O.P Jindal Global University (JGU) in our individual capacity, condemn the police crackdown in Jawaharlal Nehru University- Delhi(JNU) and the apathy towards JNU demonstrated by State actors through their coercive actions. Continue reading Statement on Behalf of Facultyand Students of O.P Jindal Global University in Solidarity With JNU →

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Solidarity Statement from The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague

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We, the undersigned students, staff and faculty members at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague, support the right of students and teachers everywhere to a learning environment that is critical, engaging and respectful. In light of recent events and the slander campaign against the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), we are disheartened and embarrassed that this is not the vision of the current Government of India, that they would rather create spaces of fear and control, by labelling all those that criticise their policies as anti-national and unpatriotic. Continue reading Solidarity Statement from The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague →

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Statement of Solidarity FromFaculty and Graduate Students at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa Against Police Ation on JNU Campus

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To: Prof. M. Jagadesh Kumar

Vice Chancellor

Jawaharlal Nehru University

New Delhi-110 067, India

Continue reading Statement of Solidarity FromFaculty and Graduate Students at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa Against Police Ation on JNU Campus →

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The New School in Solidarity with JNU

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We, the undersigned, students, faculty, alumni, and staff at the New School University, New York, stand in solidarity with the students, staff, and faculty at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in their protests against the militarization of the campus and suppression of dissent by anti-democratic and divisive Hindu nationalist groups allied with the Modi government. Continue reading The New School in Solidarity with JNU →

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University of Texas Students and Faculty stand with JNU

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We, the undersigned, students, scholars, and faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, stand in solidarity with the students, faculty, and staff at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi against the illegal and unconscionable crackdown by police. 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. With them, we affirm the autonomy of the university as a non-militarized space for freedom of thought and expression. Accordingly, we condemn police presence on campus and the harassment of students on the basis of their political beliefs.  Continue reading University of Texas Students and Faculty stand with JNU →

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The Limits of Efficient Suasion : Rina Ramdev

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This is a guest post by RINA RAMDEV

The Prime Minister’s monogrammed suit and the HRD Minister’s fake degree in the early days of the BJP’s 2014 electoral win were embarrassments dotting the uneasy calm that prevailed over the new digital, development avatar of the nation; even as a sense of the slouching beast waiting to break through the controlled, contained quietism was always there in deferred menace. And thus, when majoritarian sentiment fuelled the ‘Ghar waapsi’ campaign and the ban on cow slaughter found a mainstreaming in minority witch hunting, there was an eerie expectedness to these turns. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s minatory address, carrying the subtext of a communal cleansing in sinister remand, visibilized itself in the horrific lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in Dadri. Mostly civil voices of protest raged against this as well as against the organised killings of questioning rationalists like Pansare and Kalburgi. Sections of the thinking polity mobilised signature campaigns, petitions and an entire event like the‘Award waapsi’ drew attention to this vitiated political climate. Continue reading The Limits of Efficient Suasion : Rina Ramdev →

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#NoDissentNoCountry #StandWithJNU

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Williams College Stands with JNU!

 

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQm_SvFKiJ4

Kajri Jain, University of Toronto

 

Aarti Sethi, (JNU 2009), Columbia University

A complete Hindi transcript and video of Kanhaiya Kumar’s speech is available here.

A complete English translation may be accessed here.

Rohith Vemula’s last note may be accessed here.

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A Solidarity Poem for JNU from the Incarcerated Community of Philadelphia

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A solidarity poem for Kanhaiya and the JNU protestors from the Center for Carceral Communities (a collective of current and previously incarcerated people and advocates in Philadelphia, housed at the University of Pennsylvania, USA).

 

we are with you kanhaiya

reaching out from our barred windows

all 2.5 million of US

we cross borders and seas

to smuggle in

wirecutters and metalfiles

and circuitbreakers

hidden deep

in these words and

outraged tears

we are with you

as you dance on this

multiheaded serpent

this global picture-in-picture-in-picture

of progress-in-democracy-in-prison-in-silence-in-fear

with you

shoulder to shoulder

as you scream over and over

abvpISobamaISbushISmodi

hand-in-hand with you

dear kanhaiya

as you christen

this revolution

with blood and urine

spilt in these corridors

of power

slick with the froth

of hindutva

with you always

as you stare down

this justice

turned

slippery and slick

and cold

until it is just / ice

Signed:

 

mouth

Alison Neff (Director, CCC)

Toorjo Ghose (Associate Professor, SP2, UPenn)

35 members of the CCC collective (who need to remain anonymous)

on behalf of

2.5 million who are currently incarcerated in the U.S. (who are forced to remain anonymous)

 

 

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5 Colleges Faculty and Student Statement in Solidarity with JNU

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This is a statement sent by scholars at five universities in the U.S

We, the undersigned at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, Smith College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Amherst College wish to express our solidarity with the students, faculty, staff and wider community of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India’s premier academic institution. We demand that all charges against all students being targeted as ‘anti-national,’ including JNU Student Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, be dropped immediately. We understand the arrest of Mr. Kumar, and the intention to arrest or interrogate another 50 students on some unspecified list of the Delhi Police, to be associated with a wider campaign to quell dissent in India’s universities, a campaign which includes the harassment faced by Hyderabad Central University student Rohit Vemula, resulting in Mr. Vemula’s suicide. We are concerned about the well-being of the students who continue to be debarred from all academic activities at JNU, without any due process or proof of wrong doing, and we condemn the scapegoating and media trial of Umar Khalid, based largely upon his identity as a minority. We demand that the Delhi police should withdraw from the JNU campus. We believe that the ultimate responsibility for the campaign of harassment against universities throughout the country lies with the present Indian Government and we demand that the government desist.

We are aware and are in agreement with the fact that the case against Mr. Kumar is false in every way. We are also in agreement with eminent economist Professor Prabhat Patnaik, that the government’s actions are nothing less than the beginning of a campaign to undermine the Indian Constitution itself. The events in Hyderabad, JNU, and most recently, Jadavpur University, all point to a pattern of harassment, wherein the central government has deployed campus-based student groups to silence dissent. We take the use of the state’s machinery to physically attack vocal and articulate students speaking against the government extremely seriously. We are particularly concerned by this government’s tacit approval of the violence exhibited by lawyers at Patiala house this week. As scholars and students based in the US, we have already witnessed efforts by representatives of the Hindu right to undermine academic debate and scholarship in the context of South Asian Studies in the US and in India. We collectively represent years of scholarly and activist experience in addressing threats to academic freedom, and see that these threats are part of a larger project to undermine democracy and to rationalize a fundamentally unequal society. Continue reading 5 Colleges Faculty and Student Statement in Solidarity with JNU →

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Statement of Solidarity with Students in JNU, India – by students in KU Leuven, Belgium

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We, the undersigned, students in the social sciences and humanities programs at KU Leuven, strongly condemn the Indian state’s heavy handed and politically motivated action against the students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi.

We condemn the brutal police action against students, especially the arrest of JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president, Kanhaiya Kumar on 12 February 2016 – who has been charged under colonial-era sedition laws. We equally condemn the witch-hunt against and media trials against JNU, its faculty, and its students – especially Umar Khalid, an atheist-Leftist activist, who is wrongfully being called an ‘Islamist’ by some in the media.

Over the last few months, Indian universities have become a crucial site to contest and resist the arbitrary and concerted efforts of the Indian state to quash academic autonomy and dissent – from the scrapping of non-NET fellowships in 2015, to the death of Dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemula at the Hyderabad Central University, earlier in January.

We underscore the fact that universities have historically been sites of critical thinking and politics, and need to remain the same. Furthermore, as the recent cases in India have shown, it is often students from under-privileged backgrounds who raise critical questions against the workings of the state, and also question structures of privilege within universities, in peaceful and non-violent ways.

The government and police action against the students at JNU seriously undermines and threatens these values. These (re)actions are based on questionable facts and charges of anti-nationalism and sedition. Indeed, no is within the space of the university that ideas of the ‘nation’ – who is included within it, and who is excluded – can be questioned and debated.

Continue reading Statement of Solidarity with Students in JNU, India – by students in KU Leuven, Belgium →

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Manipur Solidarity Statement for JNU

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Guest Post by a group of Concerned Individuals from Manipur

We, the undersigned, are appalled by the conduct of the present regime against Jawaharlal Nehru University where students are being hunted down for debating on an issue which is also close to the heart of Manipur.

There is critical need for deepening dialogue on the very idea of India so that many nations and nationalities have space for their expressions rather than stifling them within a very narrow definition of India. There are very few institutions in India where such a debate can take place, and a healthy debate will allow India to be critical of itself ensuring a more vibrant multicultural and multi-national India.

We strongly believe that universities must be non-militarized spaces where students and teachers are able to freely engage on topics such as the one that took place in JNU. They must not be suppressed ideologically and militarily in the name of national security. Back here, there is military occupation in the heart of Manipur University. Yes, in the name of security. And it is time the military completely withdraws away from the sites of learning and knowledge.

Continue reading Manipur Solidarity Statement for JNU →

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Purdue University Stands in Solidarity with JNU

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We, the undersigned faculty and students at Purdue University, strongly condemn the arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar. We oppose the systematic and deliberate attempts to humiliate, bully and terrorize the university’s community of scholars and political activists. It is unethical for a government to spread canards about students with the hope of distracting attention away from its over-zealous, slapdash interventions in academic institutions. We demand that this scapegoating and hounding of Umar Khalid, and all other students, cease immediately.

We salute the courageous JNU community that stands proud and resolute in the face of physical violence, media trials, and sectarian, antediluvian discourses that confuse students for enemies, and dissent – the cornerstone of democracy – for sedition.

More generally, we detect a pattern in this government’s deployment of the state machinery against young adults committed to addressing the inequities and discriminations so blatant in our country today. We insist, therefore, that the central government end its programmatic assault on public educational institutions and the spirit of free-thought. Institutions of higher education must be created and preserved as spaces where caste oppression, gender and minority-exclusion can be studied, and their resistance practiced. JNU exemplifies a dual commitment to combining academic rigor with a political-ethical conscience. We stand in solidarity with JNU’s vision of a diverse campus, charged with a robust polity, where no monolithic, auto-corrected version of the nation or patriotism dominates. We believe that university campuses, like society at large, can thrive only when celebrations of the myriad manifestations of the nation are accompanied by an honest and fearless capacity to criticize its inadequacies. Continue reading Purdue University Stands in Solidarity with JNU →

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Resolution in support of the student protests in India against the militant suppression of intellectual freedom and dissent by the BJP-government

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This is a resolution passed by the Doctoral Students’ Council, City University of New York (CUNY)

WHEREAS, on 12 February, the Delhi Police raided student hostels at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and arrested the JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiyya Kumar on the arbitrary and anti-democratic charge of sedition; and

WHEREAS, this application of a draconian, colonial law which criminalizes dissent stands in stark contradiction to the very democratic character of the nation that affirms an individual’s right to free speech, however radical and unpopular the opinion; and

WHEREAS, this arrest of an elected student representative and the subsequent militarization of the campus with an overwhelming police presence is sanctioned and sponsored by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led ruling regime, in conjunction with its affiliate organizations RSS and ABVP, its student wing; and

WHEREAS, this coercive presence of the police on the university premises and elsewhere is compounded by their complicity in the physical assaults by lawyers of the Hindu Right on JNU teachers and students at the courthouse before Kanhaiyya’s hearing; and

Continue reading Resolution in support of the student protests in India against the militant suppression of intellectual freedom and dissent by the BJP-government →

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Wanted Students Surface in JNU: JNUSU Vice President Shehla Rashid Shora and Umar Khalid Speaking to Students

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[ 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.]

Continue reading Wanted Students Surface in JNU: JNUSU Vice President Shehla Rashid Shora and Umar Khalid Speaking to Students →