JNU crackdown proves Modi sarkar has abused sedition law
What the home minister Rajnath Singh wants he gets. He, of course, is following Subramanian Swamy who months ago on TV called JNU a university full of "jihadis, terrorists and Naxalites" and advocated a police station on the premises of JNU. The Sangh Parivar and its government are notoriously fickle about what they consider anti-national and seditious. Few remember that Gandhi called Section 124-A of the IPC, the worst of colonial laws. He would know as he, and many compatriots, were arrested under that draconian law. The question is it wrong to question Indian politics?
Citizens have critiqued death sentences before like Kehar Singh, found guilty of being involved in Indira Gandhi's assassination and Yakub Memon, accused in the Bombay bomb blasts. But the ultra left fringe of students instead of using parliamentary language like miscarriage of justice, dubbed Maqbool Butt's and Afzal Guru's hanging as "judicial murder". That is crossing the line between legitimate criticism and hate speech against a major constitutional body - the judiciary - including at the highest level.
Other slogans like "Breaking up India" completely unacceptable. But the Delhi Police and Union government have repeatedly violated norms. The HM and MHRD actions are completely out of line. Slogans by a handful of ultra-radical students are not a fair measure to damn a university of 7,000-8,000 students. There was sustained resistance to Emergency but the police did not camp in JNU for any length of time. Yes, three students were arrested for a long time, and some like me were banned from campus for three months and fined 6 months of my Ph.D fellowship for calling for support for an underground strike after the police kidnapping of JNUSU president DP Tripathi, now an NCP MP.
The police reports are in all likelihood based on false or incomplete reports from unreliable sources, like the ABVP's accusation against a warden who happened to be Christian that he was abusive. He and two other wardens of Jhelum Hostel stopped ABVP students in Jhelum hostel from holding a havan for a birthday, against JNU Rules. The two other wardens refuted these charges by the ABVP and another charge of harassing a woman student. Both these charges were rejected by two separate inquiry committees of JNU. But despite this the police made a trumped up charge sheet. One of them stated they were under "pressure from above." Warden Burton Cleatus is now spending precious time defending himself in a false case.
Rajnath Singh has been vociferous in his criticism of what, according to him, was a crime against the nation. Under the colonial Section 124A, even comments which are considered anti-national, are evidence of sedition. As for Smriti Irani, her efforts to deny that Rohit Vemula was a Dalit and her unwarranted intervention in HCU, has not led to any action. Minister of state Niranjan Jyoti's statement that India was divided into "Ramzadas" and "Haramzadas" was not subjected to criminal charges. Nor was she removed from office. Sushma Swaraj helped Lalit Modi to escape from Indian justice. No action. Vasundhara Raje Scindia also facilitated Lalit Modi's escape. No action. So there is one set of laws for the ruling party and sangh parivar; another for universities.
Since in JNU we teach our students to speak truth to power, we are not popular with those who are illiberal. But that's what Tilak, Jyotiba Phule, Gandhi, Nehru, Netaji, BR Ambedkar, Sarojini Naidu, Aruna Asaf Ali and Vallabhai Patel among others did during the freedom struggle. But understandably the home minister wouldn't know. They were not part of that struggle.