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Feb 16: It is an exciting time to be a youngster in India. There is more and more political awareness even amongst the urban youth. Even if a lot of them have not been participating in causes directly, they have been affiliated with various causes and have an opinion on issues that affect them and those around them. But it is also a dangerous time for those who are in thick of action, in the strictest meaning of the phrase, as can be seen from the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar.
Kumar’s arrest for alleged ‘anti-national’ speeches, has triggered a nationwide protest with over 40 universities speaking out in solidarity with him. A pattern, that one simply cannot ignore and is too conspicuous to be dismissed as mere coincidence or doings of a political agenda, has emerged and a reading of this pattern is very important for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), above all else. There is an immediate need for the right wing party to learn how to handle dissent as it is manifesting itself in the form of student protests in various parts of the country. Also Read: Prakash Karat on JNU Row: ‘We wear ‘anti-national’ as a badge of honour’
The centre has been concentrating all its energy on systematically suppressing dissent, instead of making efforts to understand it or try to negotiate with the protesters, branding students and universities at random as ‘anti-national’. Union Ministers are making irresponsible and grossly presumptive statements, trying to portray the whole thing as purely politically motivated. But that subterfuge is not going to work for long, dear BJP and you better get your act together.
Trying to pit the students against what they understand as nationalistic and patriotic is isolating the dissenters even more. And if you think that all this will be forgotten, then you cannot be farther away from the truth. Earlier, there was a general indifference amongst the urban youth towards the political scenario, with most of them being silent and passive observers at the most. Now, thanks to your response dear GoI, more and more of the city youth are not just engaging but actively becoming part of the causes, by helping organise and joining in, in the protests. Also Read: JNU row: Govenment issues clarification, says action only against ‘anti-national’ protests
Keeping all else aside, the BJP is just isolating a large section of its electorate, which is probably the most important one too, by its crack down that is aimed at gagging voices. Moreover there is extensive use of brute force by the State, which is being seen in every student protest. Police using lathicharge and water canon on students, be it from FTII, or Hyderabad University, or now JNU, is becoming like an everyday activity. The police is getting involved to an extent where it is randomly picking up students ‘assuming’ them to be students from a dissident University!
The key to understanding student protests is to keep the lathis and the loudspeakers down and just really interact and allow discussion and debate. The government and its custodians need to learn how to engage actively so as to understand the grievances of the students, instead of making accusatory statements that smack of arrogance and are aimed at pitting sections of civil society against each other (I’m looking at you, Smriti Irani and Rajnath Singh).And while they’re at it, they also need to reign in their right wing activists who, without knowing the whole truth, proceed to spread lies, half-truths and untruths in a slapdash fashion, at the slightest provocation.
The government needs to realise that dissent is not a one off event that occurs at random and can be branded in one category (anti-national *rolls eyes*). Especially amongst the student community, protests and expression of dissent is more common than you’d think. All throughout 2015, there were student protests in various universities, and on various issues, right from protests at Jadavpur University that forced the Vice Chancellor to resign, to girl students’ ‘Pinjra Tod: Break the Hostel locks’ in Jamia Milia Islamia University, against cancellation of late nights for girls.
So if the government thinks that it can assault universities and beat the students’ views into shape, until they speak the language that it wants them to speak, they are in for a big disappointment. If anything, that is just going to be counter productive, because we are all watching dear BJP. We are learning our lessons and we will not make the same mistakes twice. But are you going to learn?
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