The night they rusticated JNU's Umar and Anirban

The JNU campus was quiet last night; it was late, and the worlds that come together at the night-time tea-stalls are still coming together. One might imagine furious discussions in hostel rooms and common rooms; the campus is under attack again. But the barbarians, this time, are not at the gates. They are within, they are the gatekeepers; and they don’t speak the language that JNU understands or accepts.

What the state apparatus has so far failed to establish, the university authorities are apparently attempting to vindictively do for them: make an example of a few students, with a view to intimidating others. Jawaharlal Nehru University’s ironically-named “High Level Enquiry Committee” has released the news to the press that Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya are to be ‘rusticated’ – a quaint Victorian word that reeks of Mr Squeers’ infamous school and is further indication of the infantilisation by the Indian state of its student-citizens, in the manner of the colonial state.

JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar has been fined; a Kashmiri student, Mujeeb Gattoo, has also been “rusticated” for shouting “anti-national” slogans. Here we go again: do we know so clearly what this “nation” is that we know who the anti-nationals are?

“The committee has recommended rustication/fine for three students, withdrawal of hostel facilities/financial penalty for two students and only financial penalty for fourteen students. Two former JNU students, moreover, have been declared out of bounds.”

So runs the press release, in its unforgettably unusual syntax. Details will no doubt emerge over the next few days, but at the moment all that seems apparent is that there is a war between the students and the government, with the government having appointed a fifth column within JNU. This is a war that cannot be won without a defeat for that abstraction so apparently beloved of the forces that seek to assault freedom of discussion across the country, and are attacking universities across the country: the “nation”.

One thing is clear: the Indian state is making a right honourable arse of itself, at home and abroad, in much the same way as the Turkish state is trying to become the brutal caricature of democracy that wishes to prosecute comedians abroad for making fun of its Great Leader, or to criminalise academics who are critical of the state.

The Indian version attempts to muzzle all forms of organisation and dissent that do not involve the newly-promoted shorts-to-trousers paramilitary brigades; and to create low-level harassment and selective violence so that ordinary people without protection are afraid to express themselves. It was not two days ago that a BJP functionary from Assam tried to strangle Kanhaiya Kumar on a flight.

Don’t stick your neck out or we’ll wring it, seems to be the message. The JNU administration appears to be acting in accord with Sangh Parivar initiatives, formal and informal, to intimidate dissenters in as many ways as possible.

It was not so long ago that the very essence of being a citizen of India was the right to be critical, and this was a right that distinguished the independent nation-state from the colonial state before it. What are the reasons given now for the persecution of its students by the new regime at JNU?

“The recommendation of the Committee for the above disciplinary measures pertains to ‘Not following university procedures’, ‘providing misinformation to the university’, ‘misconduct and indiscipline’, ‘causing and colluding in the unauthorized entry of any person into the campus’, ‘putting up objectionable poster’ [sic], ‘arousing communal, caste or regional feelings and creating disharmony among students’, ‘furnishing false certificate or false information in any manner’, ‘blockade or forceful prevention of any normal movement of traffic’ and ‘violation of security, safety rules’ notified by the university,” the Hindu quotes the press release from the High Level Enquiry Committee as saying.

So this is how it is going to be: throw in a large dose of official-sounding rules, without explaining in what way they pertain to particular charges or episodes; and some of them might even sound plausible. If you know your history, then you will know where this is coming from.

An old colonial practice was for servants of the colonial state to huddle together and see what combination of rules and laws they could draw out of their files to prosecute or harass people they wanted to harass. First you find the person you want to accuse of wrongdoing, then you try to find a few things to accuse him of, hoping that some of them will stick.

The man whom this university is named after once referred to the Indian colonial justice system as an “Alice in Wonderland” world: and today I read an article claiming that Lewis Carroll had been reading Vedanta when he wrote his books, so perhaps it’s legitimate for the current custodians of the Indian state to borrow an indigenous idea back.

There is of course a funny side to this, which has not been lost on even the victims of persecution. Anirban Bhattacharya, a soft-spoken researcher whom I first met at the West Bengal State Archives, posted on his Facebook page, “The revolution might not be, but the witch hunt, as we know, has always been televised! And in any case, the chronicle of this witch hunt had long been foretold!”

Literary allusions aside (all of which are foreign and not indigenous), what has been happening that leads to the persecution and attempted prosecution of students discussing a trial and execution widely regarded as procedurally flawed, the disinterest of the regime and the university in finding the masked men who allegedly chanted the “anti-national” slogans (were they the classical agents provocateurs of colonial counter-insurgency, as the Delhi Government has implied?)

Is the Indian “nation” so fragile as to be unable to survive open discussion of political matters?

In all of this, it would be folly on the part of its citizens to protest their national loyalties: that would merely be to play the government’s game. Instead of that, we could propose a basic test for the temporary custodians of the Republic of India, whoever they may be, to indicate their commitment to the idea of the nation. Is an area under AFSPA? Or is it under variations of Operation Green Hunt?

If so, can it really be considered part of the normal “nation-state”? Would it, if it were, need these emergency measures to hold its population to the Indian state? Should we, instead, refer to AFSPA- or emergency-provisions-led areas as India’s “occupied territories”?