CLEAN UP JNU-Crisis in JNU is merely a symptom of a much deeper malaise Sunday, 21 February 2016 | Kanchan Gupta

Crisis in JNU is merely a symptom of a much deeper malaise Sunday, 21 February 2016 | Kanchan Gupta | in Coffee Break 1 2 3 4 5 16 The Left-liberal outrage and sanctimonious posturing at home and abroad notwithstanding, the idea is to fix a broken system that has been held hostage by the Left. The time has come to reclaim our groves of academe from those who thwart academic freedom and choke free thought with ideology Last week, the Associate Editor of a Left-leaning news portal called me and requested an interview. My comments were sought on the still unfolding and rather unedifying Jawaharlal Nehru University saga. I was sort of surprised. My political views and those on the JNU spectacle are not exactly unknown to the Editor of the portal. So why would she want to publish them? I was told the portal wanted to put out a contrarian position and assured that my replies would neither be edited nor hacked. On that assurance I agreed to the interview. The questions were e-mailed to me. I was requested to mail back my replies, preferably late night or early morning. I sat up late into the night, framing my replies and sending them to the Associate Editor. The next morning I sent a revised paragraph. Both the e-mails were acknowledged. A short while later, around midday, the Associate Editor called back to say her bosses had decided not to run the interview. Apparently first they wanted to cut off chunks and then just spiked all of it. The Associate Editor, a decent person, was flustered and I did not wish to pursue the point. Also, ultimately it’s the Editor’s discretion to run or not run copy, even when it has been specifically solicited for publication. But that does not prevent me from publishing my views and putting them in the public place for others. We may be living with the many terrors inflicted on us by the Commentariat, we have not yet become a Stalinist state. So here are the questions and my replies. With reference to the JNU incident, do you think the Government overreacted? Are you content with the way the situation was handled? The audiovisual evidence of what happened at JNU on February 9 suggests three things. First, it was not a spontaneous burst of misplaced or misguided student fervour. The slogans, ranging from “Kashmir ki Azadi” to “Bharat ki Barbadi”, had been scripted and rehearsed for the event. Second, the perverse celebration of the ‘martyrdom’ of two convicted terrorists, Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat, who were executed after due process of law, was intended to provoke a blowback given popular sentiments. Third, the organisers and participants of the event were clearly pushing the envelope by taunting the state and daring authorities to act against them. The Vice-Chancellor and other officials were misled into believing that the event was no different from other such shows that litter campus life. It was titled “Poetry reading the country without a post office”, whatever that means. It turned out to be nothing as innocuous as that. The banner at the venue read “Against the Brahmanical collective conscience, Against the judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat, In solidarity with the struggle of the Kashmiri people for their democratic right to self-determination”. From ‘poetry reading’ to caste denigration, glorifying terrorists and promoting secession, it was a huge jump. The organisers had been intentionally deceitful. The university officials withdrew permission for the event after realising the mischief potential and likely consequences. Yet the students went ahead in a show of intended belligerence and defiance. On Monday night news TV reported that the Intelligence Bureau has tracked questionable links between one of the student leaders and a Pakistan-based terrorist organisation. Apparently he has visited Pakistan too. I have no independent corroboration, but if students and young men and women can be picked up on similar suspicions or charges from lesser known institutions and corporate offices, there is no reason why JNU should get preferential treatment. Given this backdrop, it was inevitable for the police to act. The JNU students union president, who was present at the venue, was arrested. The others responsible for the deed are absconding. This was not an anti-Government or anti-establishment protest, it was an anti-India demonstration. The state would have acted against anything similar anywhere else. The traditional inviolability of a campus was violated by the organisers and participants of the event. A close scrutiny of the tapes that have emerged suggest call to action which could have only been call to violence. None of those responsible for the deplorable show (even the university acknowledges it was unacceptable) is a teenager. They are young adults fully aware of consequences, legal and otherwise, of separatism and terror glorification. The police has done what is expected of it. The police has acted within its remit. Now it is for the courts to decide. That is the rule of law. JNU has been the home of dissent and protest for decades. Where should the line be drawn by students? What was witnessed on February 9 was neither dissent nor protest. It was unadulterated promotion of separatism, a call for secession. It’s all about crossing the proverbial Lakshman Rekha or, if that offends some people, it’s about crossing the Rubicon. That was done knowingly, intentionally. It’s all about reaching the tipping point. It was reached on February 9. Frankly, nobody cares for silly protests and irrational dissent. That may entertain and gratify a clutch of wannabe activists and pretentious students, the outside world has no time for it. People lead real lives with real problems. They couldn’t care less for the make-belief concerns of JNU students. It’s only when youthful exuberance metastises into spiteful hate that people sit up and take notice. Is the repeated intrusion of Government in universities justified? If it is a tax-funded institution, yes. Academic institutions need and must have academic autonomy. That’s a sine qua non. Problem begins when academic autonomy becomes a cover for non-accountability. Let us not forget that these institutions owe their very existence, the teachers owe their jobs, and students owe their affordable campus life, to the millions of taxpayers of India. The institutions really belong to them, held in trust by the Government. The taxpayers are stakeholders and they have the right to demand accountability from Government on how their money is spent. The Government, in turn, has the right to seek accountability from these institutions. Sadly in India institutions resent accountability. Autonomy becomes a cover of convenience. We have reached a stage where autonomy has come to mean “Write me a cheque, don’t tell me what to do with the money.” Take a look at the annual financial statement of JNU or any of the 120-odd institutions, including 46 Central universities, funded by the Union Government. It would tell you the extent of investment by we the people with shockingly low returns on that investment. For more evidence look at Nalanda University. This has to change. If I do not have a say in how my tax money is spent, then sorry, you can’t have that money. I have the right to accountability, the Government is the vehicle through which I exercise that right. Your comment on the sedition charges slapped on JNUSU president. Is that fair? Do you think this falls under the legal ambit of sedition? Sedition is a complex issue. The law is written in black and white but several judgements have injected the law with shades of grey. Also, we must remember that sedition is a colonial era concept. There is natural resistance to the use of this law. Given the gravity of the charge of sedition, judges are cautious and the intelligentsia is reluctant to embrace it without raising discomfiting questions. I am not too sure about the wisdom of using it as an instrument of law in today’s India. But that is my view, possibly a minority view given popular opinion which at the moment is extremely enraged and enormously hostile to what has happened at JNU. A far more useful debate would be possible in a calmer situation. What will be the long-term impact / significance of this incident? Campuses need to be cleaned of malcontent, both among students and faculty. This is universally acknowledged. Politicians admit the need to cleanse campuses, but that is in private. In public, they cynically misuse campus politics to further their own shabby and sinister agendas. A college or an university is primarily meant for education, for knowledge dissemination and acquisition, for free inquiry and intellectual liberation. Which college, university or institute can claim, with any degree of honesty, to meet these standards? If the JNU fracas initiates the process of restoring the primacy of academic activity over debilitating activism, then that would be a huge achievement. But it is a big if. Let us see how this plays out. I am not particularly bothered about Left-liberal outrage and sanctimonious posturing at home and abroad. The idea is to fix a broken system that has long been held hostage by the Left, held to ransom by the Left. The time has come to reclaim our groves of academe from those who thwart academic freedom and choke free thought with ideology. A law introduced by the British to silence Indians is being used against our own. Isn’t that ironical? I have addressed this point. The only other thing I would like to add is that sedition should not be viewed in isolation. The First Amendment in America enshrines free speech. The First Amendment in India, ushered by Jawaharlal Nehru, curbs free speech. We had something as evil and diabolical as 66A till the Supreme Court struck it down. We still have 69A, the first cousin of 66A, on the statute books. A country which imposes undefined reasonable restrictions on free speech, loses the right to agitate against a sedition law. A country whose Constitution promises not to discriminate on grounds of caste, religion and gender, and yet legitimises discrimination in the guise of a twisted definition of secularism, cannot afford to militate against a sedition law, irrespective of its vintage. My concerns are more fundamental and less fashionable. Is our democracy so fragile that it needs a sedition law? We are an ancient land but a young nation-state and a younger democracy. We have weaknesses that are debilititating. We face internal and external threats that are unique. Unlike the US, we have sought to resolve issues of unity and integrity of the nation without taking recourse to a civil war. We have diversities that are seemingly irreconcilable. We have sub-nationalism that is constantly in conflict with the idea of nationalism. We have identities, real and imagined, that are yet to be subsumed to a unifying national identity. We are the only nation without a national language that bridges regions and communities. At some point in future things will settle down. Perhaps we will have Second Republic, a democracy that is truly robust and self-sustaining, strong and confident enough not to worry about sedition and secession. At the moment we and other nations live in challenging times, troubling times, unsettling times. Let’s not forget that the US, the world’s oldest and most robust democracy, has felt the need for a Patriot Act to cope with the times. We, the world’s largest democracy, are trying to cope without a similar law — but the limits of moral persuasion are there for all to see. Is it time to examine whether we need a treason law rather than a sedition law? Laws do not a nation make. Loyalty does a nation make. And loyalty is something that comes from within, not because disloyalty fetches punishment. If you are not loyal to your motherland, if you are not true to the country that has given you your most precious belonging, your identity, what use is either a treason or sedition law