JNU students, don't forget what you owe to the taxpayer

Any story is the sum total of many stories. So also the Jawaharlal Nehru University story that dominates media discourse emanating from Lutyens' Delhi at the moment.

Those defending the indefensible deeds of students owing allegiance to various shades of red, and united by a common impulse to taunt the Indian state, would want people to hear and believe only their story. But the other stories need to be told too, if only for a fuller understanding of what transpires at tax-funded institutions of higher learning in the guise of free thought, free speech and free debate. It would also explain why there's outrage across the country and little sympathy for students against whom the police have initiated action. That's irrespective of whether or not the government has overreacted.

Outrage

This is not the first time JNU has been the object of popular anger and public scorn. In 1999, in the midst of the Kargil war, leftist students in JNU organised an India-Pakistan mushaira. Abuse and worse was heaped on India and its defence forces.

When two brothers, both soldiers, who were present, protested, they were set upon. It needed one of them to pull his revolver to escape the mob. A decade later, in 2010, Leftist students organised night-long revelry to "celebrate" the massacre of 76 CRPF jawans by Maoists in Dantewada. The next year, Arundhati Roy, speaking to her admirers at JNU, justified the killing of security forces to loud applause and louder cheers.

Examples abound of such events at JNU. From pushing the demand for Tamil Eelam to promoting separatism in Kashmir Valley, from expressing solidarity with secessionists in India's Northeast to berating Hindu beliefs, from demonising America to calling for the extermination of Israel, from protecting Islamists on the campus to providing the protective cover of progressive politics to Islamism, everything that appals common sensibilities and offends mass sensitivities is kosher.

Free speech, free debate, free dissent and free thought are touted as covers of convenience for everything that militates against the very ideals that were once enshrined as the founding principles of JNU. As a distraught teacher rues, an institution that was supposed to be a tribute to Jawaharlal Nehru has, over the decades, become a memorial to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, living up to his infamous threat: "We will either have a divided India or a destroyed India." This transmogrification has been facilitated by teachers who place ideology before academic excellence, students who believe it is their right to fob off the state and live at the taxpayer's expense while abusing both benefactors and a debilitated government held hostage to the capricious politics of cynical politicians. Intellectuals eager to play the role of useful idiots have no dearth of masters.

Tradition

The patently anti-India event of February 9, where slogans ranged from "Bharat ki barbadi" to "Kashmir ki azadi", was in keeping with the long-standing tradition of leftist students at JNU mocking the Indian state, pushing the envelope, daring authorities to act against them. They did so in the smug belief that the state, as in previous years, would not dare respond. They believed wrong.

The outpouring of anger in the Leftist camp has little to do with the JNU Students' Union president being arrested under the law against sedition. It has everything to do with the government daring to touch their bastion. The police action has understandably run alarm bells across campuses: the party is getting over, if it's not already over.

It could be argued that perhaps the government, and the police, could have dealt with the situation in a more sophisticated manner. After all, not every student at JNU (or any university with a dominant Leftist lobby) carries a tambourine and sings "We shall overcome" or whatever its variants are.

Nor does every teacher believe that his or her first loyalty is to the banner of ideology.

Resentment

Demonising a university or its community serves no purpose. Cleansing campuses of malcontent silently, effectively, away from the glare of an intrusive media controlled by cheap thrill seekers does. Sadly, the first has happened with amazing speed.

The resentment against JNU is palpable in the street, in drawing rooms, in offices and in places far and wide. Media hype and hysterical denunciation by the unsettled usual suspects have combined to fan the anger. Misplaced support for misguided students has proved counterproductive.

A last story that needs to be told is about how much we, the people, spend on JNU. Between 2012-13 and 2015-16, nearly Rs 1,300 crore has been paid from the exchequer to this university alone. That's not exactly loose change. Academic freedom and free debate are fine, but surely both teachers and students owe accountability to taxpayers.

That accountability is not fulfilled by glorifying terrorists and calling for the dismantling of the very state that affords the luxury of subsidised campus life.

As for free speech, the Leftists need to realise that it's a two-way traffic. They can't have for themselves what they deny to others. Indeed, harsh as this may sound, the fact remains freedom and Leftism are antithetical to each other. No bastion of Left politics can claim to be free. So when JNU leftists cry "Freedom under siege", one can only feel sorry for them.

It has been rightly pointed out that JNU needs a reboot. For that, it first needs to be reclaimed from those holding it to ransom. If the government fails in this task, let taxpayers insist they will no longer foot the bill for bogus dissent and spurious revolution.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)