We the undersigned, from the India Chapter of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT), would like to place on record our solidarity with the students and teachers of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). We find the recent events that have taken place in JNU – arrest of the JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition, and a lookout by the police for several other students who allegedly raised anti-national slogans – extremely disturbing. We also feel that the use of the sedition law, which was enacted by British colonial government, draconian and has no place in India. A fundamental principle in a democracy is the right to free speech. Article 19 of the Indian Constitution grants it as a fundamental right, and the Indian courts have recognised this in the past, including in the case of Balwant Singh vs. State of Punjab. In this context, the framing of charges against the students of JNU is unacceptable, and should have no place in a democratic society.
University of Minnesota Stands in Solidarity with Jawaharlal Nehru University
We, the undersigned at the University of Minnesota, strongly condemn the concerted attack on the students, faculty and academic culture of Jawaharlal Nehru University. At the behest of the government, the Delhi police has pressed sedition charges on unnamed students of the university. Reminiscent of the Emergency, the students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar has been arrested, several students have been suspended and the Delhi police has been hounding students in hostels, homes as well as public spaces in the city. Sections of the mainstream media have launched a vicious campaign to declare JNU an “anti-national” university, and some journalists have gone so far as to spin lies about the “terrorist connections” of student activist Umar Khalid. As a consequence, mob violence against JNU students and faculty has spread across the city and even entered the courtrooms where the case against the JNU students’ union president was being heard. We strongly condemn this hate campaign and demand the immediate release of the JNU students’ union president. We also demand that the suspension of students is revoked and unsubstantiated sedition charges are withdrawn immediately.
Continue reading University of Minnesota Stands in Solidarity with Jawaharlal Nehru University
भारत माता की जय बोल
‘भारत माता की जय बोलो’, अचानक तिरंगा झंडा लिए नौजवानों का एक समूह शिक्षकों की सभा के पास आ धमका. “मुझे माइक पर भारत माता की जय बोलने दो”, उसने धमका कर कहा.
टी वी चैनेल का एंकर चीख कर सामने बैठे नौजवान से बोला: भारत माता की जय का नारा लगा कर दिखाओ.
मुझे रवीन्द्रनाथ टैगोर के उपन्यास ‘घर-बाहर’ का बिमला का पति निखिल याद आ गया. बिमला उससे खफा है क्योंकि वह जुनूनी बंदे मातरम का नारा लगाने से इनकार करता है. वह भारत माता जैसी किसी देवी की वंदना करने से इनकार करता है. वह याद करता है कि उसके मास्टर साहब ने बताया था कि देश का मतलब पांवों के नीचे की ज़मीन नहीं, उसके ऊपर के लोग हैं. क्या जो भारत माता की जय का नारा लगाते हैं, उन्होंने इन करोड़ों-करोड़ लोगों की ओर आँख उठाकर भी देखा है, क्या वे उनके दुःख-दर्द के साझीदार हैं?
और मुझे फिर नेहरू याद आए. Continue reading भारत माता की जय बोल
Sambit Patra Flying the Tricolour on Times Now, in JNU and on Iwo Jima – History Re-Imagined (Once Again) by the BJP
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.
#StandwithJNU: Solidarity Statement from the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia
We, graduate students and faculty at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice and the broader University of British Columbia community stand in absolute and resounding support of the students, faculty, staff and allies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). We condemn the political and legal clout being exercised by the Indian government in Kanhaiya Kumar’s arrest and subsequent reaction to protests. Not only is Kanhaiya’s arrest erroneous and suspect to begin with, the consequent unraveling of systematic hatred towards these “anti-national” scholars creates an environment where anyone perceived to be against ‘Hindu’-hence-Indian culture is at risk of personal harm meted out by the State.
It is deeply disturbing to note public debate around this on mainstream Indian media and TV news channels. The contention is that universities should not be spaces of political engagement, but of quiet scholarly repose. As students and researchers committed to the principles of transnational social justice, it is distressing to note this attempt to depoliticize the university space by dismissing students as undeserving of their spot for being actively engaged in the future of their country.
To term universities and institutions that foster alternative spaces of being and thinking ‘anti-national’ is commandeering an invective that is untrue and wholly vicious. Moreover, the violence meted out to Kanhaiya as well as journalists at Patiala Court is horrifying, especially noting Delhi police’s inaction and complicity in this, despite tight presence. It is precisely this sort of unprovoked violence by the State apparatus that is undemocratic. It is baffling to note the Delhi police’s apparent inability to track down the people who attacked Kanhaiya, while at the same time it launches a now country-wide witch hunt for another JNU student leader Umar Khalid (who allegedly organized the protest in question), based on completely false Islamophobic allegations.
We believe that universities are sites of active engagement, and using an old colonial remnant that is the sedition charge betrays intent to suppress the voice of a democracy. To hold debates and discussions is not anti-national, even more so when there is overwhelming testimony that Kanhaiya Kumar was not involved in the particular sloganeering for which he was arrested. An active and thriving student body presence is what makes JNU one of Asia’s premiere institutions. It is deeply disappointing to note the efforts by the current government to clamp down on this. It is with rising alarm that we register the chain of events that connect other established institutions like the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and the University of Hyderabad (UoH).
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS STANDS WITH JNU
We, the undersigned students, faculty, staff, and other members of the University of Illinois community are in solidarity with students, faculty and staff at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India, against the ongoing anti-democratic actions by the Indian state. We demand an immediate end to the police action against students on campus, and withdrawal of all charges against Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the JNU Students’ Union. We unequivocally condemn the witch hunting of students, using archaic laws of sedition, who organized the cultural event questioning capital punishment and the deliberate vandalism and violence unleashed by those affiliated with Hindu Nationalist groups. We are also dismayed at the violence used by lawyers aligned with the government in their acts of vigilantism which are aimed at using the garb of patriotism to impose their ideology through violence.
We strongly believe that the charge of sedition against Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and the other 6 students are based on spurious evidence. This arrest is an excuse for the state to root out dissenting voices on JNU campus, a move towards converting educational institutions like JNU into an arm of the authoritarian state. Attempts of a similar nature have been witnessed recently at other Indian educational institutions such as Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and Hyderabad University. The growing threat to academic freedom and the practice of fundamental thinking and critique, posed by the current political climate is transnational, and extends beyond India to other parts of the world–it is a threat we face here in the United States, too.
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa! : To A Student from CDS
Dear Student from CDS who pasted the posters criticising our collective effort to stand with JNU
I write in response to the views that you expressed on those posters. First of all, let me tell you how much I’d have appreciated if you expressed those views openly right from the beginning, so that we could have had a proper debate. I do wish we stopped scribbling comments on each others’ posters – this is an open campus, and surely, we don’t practice the Sangh Parivar’s intolerance of a contrary opinion. No one, I assure you, will harm you in any way, and I am sure all my fellow teachers, students, and non-teaching staff will join me in assuring you thus.
Continue reading Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa! : To A Student from CDS
ALL INDIA LAWYERS UNION RAJASTHAN STATE COMMITTEE: Solidarity Message to JNU
ALL INDIA LAWYERS UNION RAJASTHAN STATE COMMITTEE
Dated:18.2.2016
SOLIDARITY MESSAGE TO JNU
All India Lawyers Union (AILU), Rajasthan State Unit, strongly condemn the recent incident where individuals in uniform of Advocates misbehaved and assaulted Mr. Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of JNU Students Union, JNU faculties, Media persons on 15.2.2016 when Mr. Kanhaiya Kumar was produced in court before the magistrate is very serious issue and it became vigorous when the incident was repeated after two days, on 17.2.2016 despite of the actions given byHon’ble Supreme Court.
Further the AILU is of the view that the Jawahar Lal Nehru University is one of the institutions in the world where healthy atmosphere is developed over a time to discuss over the national and international issues. The students as well as the faculty members thereof is of the caliber to suggest a visionary and logical culmination, which not only important for individual but also for the nation and humanity as whole. Furthermore, University is a place where new ideas are developed, questions are asked and policies are praised or criticized. If any unwarranted incident is happened in the campus of the university, certainly an action has to be initiated against the responsible individual and for such action the university administration is having sufficient measures to act upon and no police action inside the campus was required at all. If the university authorities failed to take action or has shown its inability to restrict such activity, only then the police force may be used.
As such the police action in the university campus was absolutely unwarranted, unjustified and abuse of power by the state machinery.
Arrest of Mr. Kanhaiya Kumar and other students and treating them like hardcore criminals/terrorists, in the name of sedation without any substantial evidence, is not expected in a civilized society. The crime of sedation was inserted in IPC by the British rule in order to supress anyone who used to speak against the colonial rule. This term ‘sedation’ is obsolete and has no place in a democratic system like ours, especially in the educational institutions, having international reputation. Framing students in the name of sedation is clearly an attack on the fundamental rights, that is, of speech and expression.
Intentional avoidance of the Hon’ble Supreme Court instructions is apparently an act of contempt of court for which stern action has to be taken. AILU strongly suggests to take following actions against the responsible :
(i) Criminal case has to be registered against the advocates or the persons in the advocates’ uniform indulged in assaulting within the court premises;
(ii) Separate proceeding of criminal contempt is to be started against the persons involved in assaulting despite instructions of Supreme Court;
(iii) The police personals deployed at the court campus, in front of whom the act of assault was occurred has to be suspended henceforth and inquiry has to be initiated against them;
(iv) Mr. Om Prakash Sharma, the sitting MLA, who was apparently involved in the assaulting and to instigate others to involve in assaulting, his membership of Legislative Assembly is to be seized, proceeding of criminal contempt is to be initiated against him;
(v) The courts are the place where people come with the deep faith to get justice but such type of incidents not only deprive the people to avail justice but also diminish the belief in rule of law, and therefore, stern action has to be initiated against each and every responsible person whomsoever he is;
(vi) Code of conduct for advocates has to be reviewed and it may be inserted that any advocate, who involves in such incidents occured on 15.2.2016 and 17.02.2016, shall be restricted to appear in court as well as seize their auth of advocacy;
(vii) The magistrate, before whom the repeated disruption of court proceeding was occurred but no action against the responsible advocates/persons was taken, no FIR was lodged, stern action is required to be initiated against him.
The AILU condemn both the incidents, i.e. abuse of power by the police administration in the JNU campus and omission to prevent the assault on the students faculties and media persons in the court room /campus of Patiala House court. Our organization also demands for immediate release of Kanhaiya Kumar, president of JNUSU, so that normalcy can be restored.
(Dr. Vikram Singh Nain)
General Sectretary
General Secretary: Dr. Vikram Singh Nain Advocate Mobile No: +91 9414069959 Office: 0141-2810959 E-mail: nain_vs@yahoo.co.in
President: Sanjay Tyagi Advocate Mobile No.+91 9414048493 +91 9314013492
8, Nagaur Nagar, Nr. Kisaan Dharam Kanta Gopalpura Bye-pass Road, Jaipur-302019
STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH STUDENT ACTIVISTS IN INDIA: University of Pennsylvania & Philadelphia South Asian Collective
We, activists and academics in the Pennsylvania region, strongly condemn the attack on academic freedom at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. The arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, the President of the JNU Student’s Union, on charges of sedition has brought to light the intervention of the Union Government in the internal matters of the university. The repeated interference by police personnel at the behest of Vice Chancellors on university campuses is a draconian move. The charges against students were brought after an event organized by a section of students on campus premises to discuss the judicial execution of Afzal Guru. The JNU Students’ Union was subsequently held responsible for the “anti-national” slogans that were chanted by a group of students. We condemn these trumped-up and unconstitutional charges and stand in solidarity with the efforts to repeal capital punishment in India.
The events unfolding at JNU reveal disturbing similarities with instances of government repression on other campuses. We remember, with distress, the actions of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) administration in cahoots with the Central Government, actions that led to the death of a promising Ambedkarite student-activist, Rohith Vemula. The protests that arose indicted the discriminatory atmosphere prevailing in our universities as tantamount to the denial of the fundamental right to education to socially marginalized groups. Further, the murder of social thinkers like Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi by hyper-nationalist elements under the tacit encouragement of the policies of the Central Government has shocked all advocates of free speech in India.
The charges of sedition against students participating in democratic discussion of public events is highly objectionable. The stifling of voices through intimidation and muscle power does not bode well for educational institutions.
Debate and dissent are integral parts of a strong democracy. Universities are critical public spaces that support these democratic practices to realize the values of social justice enshrined in the ideals of the constitution. International campuses like JNU, FTII and UoH bring together diverse group of students in the spirit of self-reflexive and deep intellectual engagement to ask fundamental questions of their social realities. An attack on these institutions is an attack on this precious pedagogical space. Student movements in India in alliance with other social movements in the country have historically been a resilient and sensitive force. The BJP government’s efforts to undermine them is nothing but an assault on Indian democracy. The government has failed to protect the rights of student bodies, and the highhandedness of the police highlights the insecurities of the present government.
In the United States during a presidential election year, we watch increasingly bigoted views against blacks, Muslims, and immigrants gaining ground. These events cannot be seen in isolation and we stand at the intersection of socio-political movements in the US and South Asia.
We stand in solidarity with students and faculty of JNU and demand the immediate release of the detained students. We appeal to all advocates for academic freedom in India and abroad to stand united against this state atrocity.
- Anannya Bohidar, Graduate Student, South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania
- Ammel Sharon, Graduate Student, South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania
- Meghna Chandra, Philadelphia South Asian Collective
- Ania Loomba, English, University of Pennsylvania
- Projit Mukharji, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
- Najnin Islam, Graduate Student, English, University of Pennsylvania
Letter of solidarity with JNU: Students, Staff and Faculty, Ashoka University
We, the undersigned—who study and work at Ashoka University, as well as the alumni of the Young India Fellowship, in our private capacity—write to voice our solidarity with the students and faculty at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Recent events at JNU, including the arrest of the JNUSU President over the charge of sedition, as well as other disproportionate measures, amount to a deeply troubling attack on academic and cultural freedom. We strongly condemn the display of brute force by the police, who were given free entry to the campus, including hostels, to question, detain and arrest students and faculty members. We protest the lack of police protection to those students and faculty, and condemn the use of State force against democratic expressions of dissent.
As proponents of liberal education, we believe that societies can only grow when they foster intellectual engagement with fundamental social questions and contemporary political issues through non-violent debate and argumentation. University campuses are, and should be, autonomous spaces where people can peacefully express as well as challenge dissent and opinions. However, the recent spate of events involving many university campuses across the country has posed a serious threat to the sanctity of such spaces as well as the democratic right to dissent and freedom of speech and expression. This includes the turn of events that led to Rohith Vemula’s death at the University of Hyderabad, the withholding of grants by the Ministry of Human Resource Development to Panjab University, and several instances of violent disruption of the screening of the film Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai in campuses across the country.
We condemn the State-backed misuse of the charge of sedition, a colonial era provision in the Indian Penal Code, against the JNUSU President, Kanhaiya Kumar. In the documented absence of any allegedly ‘anti-national’ actions or rhetoric on his part, we see the charge as an attempt to stifle dissent from the dominant order and silence critique of the State. We strongly believe that the provision against sedition, which was repealed in the United Kingdom itself in 2009, has no place in modern democracy. Most immediately, we strongly disapprove of the action of certain lawyers and a Member of the Legislative Assembly who physically attacked JNU students and faculty members as well as journalists outside the Patiala Court House premises on 15th February, 2016.
We fear that the continued State inaction against such instances of violence will foster an environment in which the label “anti-national” or “traitor” can be imposed on every voice of dissent.
We urge that:
– the JNU campus be restored to normalcy and the police be withdrawn from all parts of the campus.
– the JNUSU President, Kanhaiya Kumar be released from police custody immediately and all charges be dropped against him.
– such unconstitutional actions be denounced.
– we be allowed to nurture our universities as tolerant, democratic spaces where dissent and disagreement is respected, discussions are nurtured, and critical thinkers are born.
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Faculty |
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Ajit Mishra |
Bhaskar Dutta |
Malvika Maheshwari |
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Alex Watson |
Debarati Roy |
Mandakini Dubey |
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Anisha Sharma |
Durba Chattaraj |
Maya Saran |
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Anunaya Chaubey |
Gilles Verniers |
Nayanjot Lahiri |
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Anuradha Saha |
Gwendolyn Kelly |
Rajendran Narayanan |
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Aparajita Dasgupta |
Jonathan Gil Harris |
Ratna Menon |
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Aparna vaidik |
Kranti Saran |
Ravindran Sriramachandran |
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Arunava Sinha |
Kunal Joshi |
Saikat Majumdar |
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Aruni Kashyap |
M A Ahmad Khan |
Supriya Nayak |
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Pulapre Balakrishnan |
Madhavi Menon |
Vaiju naravane |
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Bharat Ramaswami |
Malabika Sarkar |
Vishes Kothari
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Staff |
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Adil Shah |
Kanika Singh |
Shiv D Sharma |
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Aniha Brar |
Karuna |
Shreya Khedia |
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Anu Singh |
Meena S. Wilson |
Sudarshana Chanda |
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Anuja Kelkar |
Mercia Prince |
Suha Gangopadhyay |
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Charu Singh |
Priyanka Kumar |
Sukanya Banerjee |
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Chiranjit mahato |
Sarah Afraz |
Sushmita Nath |
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Dr Maaz Bin Bilal |
Saumya Varma |
Swarnim Khare |
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Harshita Tripathi |
Saurav Goswami |
Tanita Abraham |
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Ishan de Souza |
Sayan Chaudhuri |
Zehra |
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Sushmita Samaddar |
Surya Raman |
Sandeep Saraswal |
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Apoorva Gupta |
Aditya Sarin |
Chandan Sharma |
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Alumni |
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Aafaque R Khan |
Kaavya Gupta |
Rishi Iyengar |
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Akanksha |
Kande Sruthi Niveditha |
Ritesh Agarwal |
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Akshay Barik |
Kaustubh Khare |
Rohini Singh |
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Ananta Seth |
Maansi Verma |
Rupali Kapoor |
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Antony Arul Valan |
Malini Bose |
Sai Krishna Kumaraswamy |
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Anushka Siddiqui |
Mayank Sharma |
Sakshi Ghai |
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Ashish Kumar |
Mrudula Nujella |
Shahzaib Ahmed |
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Ashweetha |
Neil Maheshwari |
Shaleen Wadhwana |
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Avni Ahuja |
Neelakshi Tewari |
Shashank Mittal |
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Chaarvi Badani |
Nikita Saxena |
Shivangi Pareek |
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Danish Ahmad Mir |
Nina Sud |
Shrestha Mullick |
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Debanshu Roy |
Nipun Arora |
Shweta Subbaraman |
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Deepika Ghosh |
Parushya |
Simeen Kaleem |
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Devleena Chatterji |
Pavithra Srinivasan |
Simranpreet Oberoi |
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Dhaneesh Jameson |
Poornima Sardana |
Sonal Jain |
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Dhwani Sabesh |
Pragya Mukherjee |
Subhodeep Jash |
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Hardika Dayalani |
Prama Neeraja |
Tanuj Bhojwani |
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Harsh Mani Tripathi |
Rahul Sreekumar |
Taysir Moonim |
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Harsh Snehanshu |
Rajat Nayyar |
Vaishnavi Viraj |
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Himanshu Ranjan |
Ratul Chowdhury |
Venkat Prasath |
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Jahanara Rabia Raza |
Rimjhim Roy |
Vishal Khatri |
#StandWithJNU: Solidarity Statement by Academics in the UK
This is a statement by over three hundred and fifty academics based in the UK.
We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with the students, faculty, and staff of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). We condemn the BJP government-sanctioned police action in the JNU campus and the illegal detention of the JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar. We strongly condemn the manner in which political dissent is being stifled, reducing academic spaces to fortresses. We also condemn the widespread witch-hunt of left-wing students and student groups that this police action has unleashed.
These recent acts are representative of the larger trend that we have been observing – the imposition of an authoritarian and regressive agenda in institutions of higher learning from Films and Television Institute [FTII], Hyderabad Central University [HCU] to Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU]. From the institutional murder of HCU student, Rohith Vemula, and the suppression of student protests at FTII to the illegal detention of the student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar and pervasive police presence at JNU, there has been a constant non- observance and disregard of administrative and legal norms as well as a gross infringement of the democratic rights of the student community. These actions are embedded in a deeply chauvinistic cultural nationalism, which espouses a casteist and Brahmanical, homophobic, and patriarchal worldview.
We strongly believe that student politics is being targeted currently by giving a new lease of life to a sedition law that was a draconian tool in the hands of the colonial state and has no place in a democracy. It is our democratic right to dissent, disagree, organise and struggle against state, institutions or policies that transgress and suppress democratic and egalitarian values. Expression of dissent cannot and should not be equated with being ‘anti-national’ (or any other such constructed category) and is definitely not punishable under law especially if it is non-violent.
Disguising targeted assault on oppositional student groups/political movements within the narrative binaries of nationalism/anti nationalism only reflects how vulnerable the BJP government feels in its own ability to provide accountable governance.
We also believe that institutions of higher learning should be publicly funded spaces for political engagement, debates, and critical discussions – a legacy campuses (be it JNU, DU, or FTII) have embodied. As they always have, university spaces should subsidise costs of education for students, irrespective of the political disposition of the students. A rather disturbing feature of the narratives around this issue has been the construction and furthering of an artificial dichotomy between academics and politics that suggests that being ‘political’ is an aberration. This would certainly appear to be the case, if seen through the neoliberal lens of perceiving education as an industry that produces ‘semester bred’ automated ‘disciplined’ individuals who are mere consumers.
However, as the nonviolent expressions of dissent by students in JNU clearly demonstrate, contrary to this neo liberal view of academia,we believe that ‘personal is political’ and there is no sphere that is devoid of politics.We believe that good academic work necessarily involves a critical engagement with society and its power inequities and in that sense is always politically engaged. This engagement thrives in the democratic space of the university where many dissenting views can be heard and debated. The vilification of JNU as a space of ‘anti-national’ politics is being carried out by ABVP and BJP in order to attack and break this democratic spirit of academic and political life in Indian universities.
As teachers, students, scholars, and academics from the UK, who are keenly observing the developments unfolding in JNU, we express our solidarity with the students, faculty and staff of JNU as they non-violently resist this infringement on their rights. We urge the Vice Chancellor of JNU to uphold the institutional autonomy and the democratic rights of the student community. We also urge the government of India to stop encroaching on our rights as citizens, students, activists, political and politicised subjects.
Continue reading #StandWithJNU: Solidarity Statement by Academics in the UK
Solidarity Statement for JNU by IIT Scholars
This is a statement issued by the undersigned, scholars of Departments of Humanities and Social Sciences of IITs across the country.
We, the undersigned, scholars of Departments of Humanities and Social Sciences of IITs across the country, condemn the police action in JNU and the arrest of the JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar on the charge of sedition. We also denounce the repeated acts of violence unleashed by some lawyers and others at the Patiala House Court against faculty, students and the media, as well as police inaction regarding the same.
In addition, we appeal for media and public trials to cease and for civil society to instead focus on debating issues in an amicable and reasonable manner, without slandering JNU or questioning the academic integrity or patriotic fervour of JNU and its supporters. We criticise the general atmosphere of fear and intimidation that is being created to target the entire university. Given the fast polarizing political atmosphere in the country, we appeal to the media organisations to display greater responsibility and conduct television debates in such a manner that no prejudicial public opinion is created while there is an ongoing enquiry into the entire episode by the authorities concerned. Resorting to jingoism and sensationalism may cause avoidable hazards. Continue reading Solidarity Statement for JNU by IIT Scholars
A message of Solidarity and a Statutory Warning: Pankaj Mishra
Guest Post by author Pankaj Mishra
One can only welcome the broad coalition that has sprung up against the assault on JNU and in defense of the right–eternally vouchsafed to students–to intellectual freedom. But the imperative of solidarity should not make us forget that this multi-pronged violence—ordered by the government, and assisted by police officers, university officials, lawyers and sections of the media—has been in the making for a while—at least a decade and a half.
The empowerment of a technocratic elite that presumes to know exactly what the ‘New India’ ought to do in order to be wealthy and powerful made much intellectual and artistic endeavour, not to mention political struggle, seem unnecessary. Its cherished epithet ‘jholawallah,’ aimed to scornfully delegitimate a whole spectrum of demands for justice and equality as well as a culture of reflection and debate. Wealth-creators and their lackeys in politics, business and the media have long been united in their contempt for intellectual dissent—roughly interpreted as anything that seems to impede or slow down their own progress towards more wealth and power.
Continue reading A message of Solidarity and a Statutory Warning: Pankaj Mishra
JNU: 1975, 1983 and 2016: Two interviews
At the JNU rally in Delhi yesterday, I caught up with JNU alumni and historians, Rana Behal and Mukul Mangalik and asked them about their experiences as students at JNU in the 1970s (Behal) and 1980s (Mangalik) and what brought them to Mandi House on a damp, but pleasant, thursday afternoon.
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
#NoDissentNoCOUNTRY #StandWithJNU
As the People’s Republic of Delhi dances to freedom’s song, people from around the world liberate banned speech. Bol Ke Labh Azad Hain Tere!
Divya Cherian, (JNU 2008) Rutgers University
Dora Zhang and Damon Young, University of California, Berkeley
Greta LaFleur, Yale University
A full text of Kanhaiya Kumar’s speech and a video is available here:http://kafila.org/2016/02/15/jnusu-president-kanhaiya-kumars-speech-before-being-arrested/
A complete English Translation may be accessed here: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160216/jsp/frontpage/story_69576.jsp#.VsMg17R97GL
As The People’s Republic of New Delhi Marches in the Free Air Students of Berkeley #StandWithJNU
As the people of Delhi march, sing, run and dance to freedom’s call, as they cock a snook at the shackles of nationalism, casteism and authoritarian stupidity, a gift of love from afar. Look at them standing in the free air! Look at them standing around a piece of earth unbound from the myopia of nationalism!
“This soil and the air space extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity’s jurisdiction,”
At the memorial to the 1964 Free Speech Movement on the campus of University of California, Berkeley, students and faculty stand in love and solidarity with JNU. #standwithJNU
The memorial the 1964 Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley, like the thing it celebrates, is both invisible and embattled. The monument appears to be a circle of concrete six feet in diameter, in the middle of the famed Sproul Plaza where thousands of students gathered to demand the right to free speech and academic freedom on one of America’s most prominent and celebrated public university campuses. But that monument is so much more than what can be seen. The concrete circle, bearing the inscription “This soil and the air space extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity’s jurisdiction,” encompasses a 6-inch wide indentation into the ground that reaches into the soil below and 60,000 feet upwards into the sky, to the limits of American airspace. That is, in fact, the monument to free speech at Berkeley: 60,000 feet and 6-inches of invisible insistence that to speak freely is not and cannot be a right granted by any sovereign, mandated by any state. The width of the depression in the ground is as large as a person’s two feet. The ground on which they stand. From which they speak. This is the lasting monument to free speech at Berkeley. From a space as wide as our stance, reaching in an unseeable column of air to the limits of the stratosphere. A monument of air that can never, like free speech itself, be contained, torn down, or granted by another. It lies, unassuming, built as it is out of the immateriality of inalienable rights, in the middle of a campus that grapples daily with the legacy of that now 50 year old fight for the right to claim the space of the university as one of protest, of politics, of resistance.
But Berkeley, we mustn’t forget, exists on occupied territory. Its celebrated monument digs into soil that was taken, without recompense or acknowledgement, from the Ohlone people who were stripped of their lands, their language, their culture, and their lives in what America today celebrates as its great westward expansion. Thus, the monument to free speech at the University of California, Berkeley, roots itself into a soil it claims belongs to no nation and also reifies centuries of the genocide of indigenous people and of settler colonialism. This too is the legacy of the Free Speech Movement. Of the student-led activism that created Ethnic Studies programs across California and the rest of the United States. To stand in the 6-inch wide memorial is to stand in land that is occupied and to nonetheless believe that no occupation, no nation, no state, mandates our ability and our right to speak, to protest, to imagine otherwise the world in which we live.
From Berkeley to JNU. With love and solidarity.
Poulomi Saha
University of California, Berkeley
Modi Govt. Stifles Dissent and Democratic Values – The real aim of the politics of ‘Desh-droh’ and ‘Gaddaar’ : NSI
Guest Post by New Socialist Initiative (NSI)
There is poison in the air. Loud abuses of ‘deshdrohi’, ‘gaddar’, ‘maaro maaro’ are rending the air. Angry men shouting these words have beaten up teachers and students of one of the best known universities in the country in the Patiala House Court of Delhi, barely three kilometers away from the seat of the national government. An elected MLA of the ruling party was part of the team of attackers. Women teachers of the university have publicly said that they were physically harassed by the mob, while the police looked the other way. This happened on 15th February. We can turn a day back.
The Home Minister of the country announced to the world that a protest by a handful of students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University was the handiwork of India’s ‘enemy number one’, Hafez Saeed of Lashkar-E-Taiba. The basis of his claim proved to be a fake tweet within hours. Three days before that, the elected president of JNU students union Mr Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested by Delhi police on charges of sedition, under the same clause of IPC which was used by the colonial rulers against Indian freedom fighters.
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
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 