'Anti-national' JNU clash over Afzal Guru: Death of free speech on campus

The chief proctor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in the Indian capital has initiated an investigation to probe how a group of students owing allegiance to a hitherto nondescript students body - outside the campus - organised a commemorative function in memory of Afzal Guru, who was executed by the government in February 2013 for his alleged role in the attack on Indian Parliament in December 2001. The inquiry was ordered by the university authorities on a complaint filed by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students organisation affiliated to the Sangh Parivar and which has increasingly flexed its muscles since May 2014 when the Modi government assumed office.

It has been argued by ABVP and this view appears to have been prima facie upheld by the JNU administration, that questioning the fairness of the trial against Afzal Guru and asserting that he should not have been hanged by the government, tantamount is an "anti-national" act. Such an action or programme, cannot be allowed in any university, is the basic thrust of the argument. The university authorities in the statement issued have claimed that the students' group sought permission for a "cultural programme" and in their application, there was no mention of any commemorative function for Guru or even for anything remotely political.

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In a university as intensely political as JNU, the administrators surely did not expect a Bharatnatyam or fancy dress competition as part of the programme. Culture in most academic institutions is intensely political and the line between the two is either extremely thin or non-existent. For instance, will the JNU officials judge most street theatre groups like Jana Natya Manch as cultural bodies or political organisations?

At the time of Afzal Guru's execution, a viewpoint articulated by a significant section in India was that the Congress-led UPA government's decision had been catalysed by the misconception that Narendra Modi's charge on the Raisina Hill could be halted by either soft Hindutva or by taking actions that would placate jingoistic sentiment. Because the attack on Parliament was an emotive issue, the government felt that Guru's execution would take away the edge from Modi's campaign as the sole Indian who had the gumption to take such strong decisions.

Debating the action of successive governments since the outbreak of militancy and separatism in Jammu and Kashmir in the late 1980s and early 1990s and examining if such action has widened the sense of alienation among Kashmiris, is a valid academic and extra-curricular pursuit in educational institutions especially ones like JNU. For the record it must be mentioned that the programme also took note of the fact that it had been more than two decades since the minority community, meaning Kashmiri Pandits, had been forced to flee from the state.

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The stance of ABVP and other wings of the Sangh Parivar is faulty because it is based on the conclusion that judicial verdicts cannot be faulted and are not often dictated by popular social pressure. It needs to be recalled that Sikhs were not alone in their outrage when Kehar Singh was executed in the 1980s after being pronounced guilty of conspiring to assassinate Indira Gandhi. He was defended by Ram Jethmalani who was founding vice president of BJP and has since walked in and out of the party innumerable times. If memory serves this writer right, several notables of the party were also critical of the execution. Nationalism cannot have two narrative streams while in opposition and when in government.

Given the background of Rohith Vemula's suicide and the fact that it, to a great extent, was triggered by questions regarding his commitment to nationalism, educational institutions cannot accept the definition of nation and nationhood of one partisan group. Universities in the Indian educational traditional are known for their democratic values and their respect for academic diversity. Free thought can prosper only in institutions where only one way is not presented as the "correct" viewpoint. An ideal response of JNU authorities would have been to ask ABVP leaders to organise another programme where speakers could have argued that Guru was indeed a terrorist and his execution sent very important vital message to terrorist groups.

Time was when students of JNU - this writer included - had the courage to protest the invitation to Indira Gandhi at an official university function in the campus and attempt to block her entry. It needs recollection that when the incident took place in the early 1980s, university administration refused to allow police entry into the campus and the prime minister had to make an entry from a side gate and not the main one. Vice Chancellors, Registrars and other officials of the time were not worried that their refusal may earn the wrath of political leaders and cost them their positions.

The JNU incident and direction of the authorities to order a probe demonstrates that the existence of higher academic institutions continuing to remain crossroads of divergent ideological streams is under threat. Authorities and government have forged a neat patron-client relationship and free thought and expression is under threat.