Spare the students

Whether students should take part in politics was a question of contention even before independence. The same debate raged when I was studying law in Lahore. We would skip classrooms on the call of Mahatma Gandhi or some other national leaders to show solidarity with the independence struggle. The agitation was against the British rulers and it never struck us that we were missing studies.

Even when Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, raised the slogan for a separate homeland for the Muslim community, we, the students, resisted the pulls of religion. True, the Hindus and Muslims had come to have separate kitchens, but we ate together and were getting food from both kitchens. The polarised atmosphere had little effect on us.

Today, the Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarti Parishad (ABVP) is advocating a soft version of Hindutva in universities across the country.  The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) may be an island in the midst of a Hindutva sea. Yet, all credit to the university and its students for, more or less, preserving the core ideas of India — democracy, pluralism and egalitarianism. Unfortunately, the struggle to sustain secularism still continues.

A few days ago, some Muslim fundamentalist students, not more than five or six, allegedly spoilt the liberal image of JNU and raised slogans seeking India's destruction. JNU's vice-chancellor, Dr. Jagdish Kumar, told me that their number was not more than a handful. But they had tarnished the image of the university.

The electronic media, in their attempts to improve TRPs all the time, spread the impression that JNU was the epicenter of activities by fundamentalists and separatists. It was suspected that even the video clip, which was run throughout the day by a television channel, was doctored.  

Take, for instance, Vishwa Deepak's claims of grave lapses in the channel's coverage of the JNU sedition case.  The journalist, who resigned from the channel, wrote: "We journalists often question others but not ourselves. We fix others' responsibilities but not ours. We are called as the fourth pillar of democracy but are we, our organisations, our thoughts and our actions really democratic? This is not just my question but everybody else's too."

To a large extent, I agree with Deepak. We journalists often tend to preach more than practice. In his protest letter to his employers, Deepak, while apologising for the use of such words to describe the situation, asks: "Along with Kanhaiya (Kumar), we made many students appear to be traitors and anti-nationals in the eyes of the people. If anyone is murdered tomorrow, who will take its responsibility? We have not merely created a situation for someone's murder or to destroy some families but we have created the conditions ripe for spreading riots and brought the country to the brink of a civil war. What sort of patriotism is this? After all, what sort of journalism is this?"

Yet, I do not rule out the audacity of separatists to pay homage to Afzal Guru, who had plotted the attack on the Indian Parliament. It is deplorable. But the question is should they be allowed to set an agenda for the nation when India's population has overwhelmingly come to cherish democracy and pluralism? The incident at JNU should not be allowed to dilute the arduous work done to sustain pluralism when the country was divided on the basis of religion.

In fact, JNU has a position in India that is akin to Oxford in London or Harvard in the US. There is a liberal atmosphere and even the odd voices, which go against the general ideals, are given a space to express themselves. No one questions the motive because the basics are never doubted.

When then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi established JNU, the purpose was to inspire students through her father's ideals. A product of the independence struggle, Nehru was the nation's icon, not of the Congress Party, which undoubtedly led the movement to wrest the country from the exploitative British rulers. The purpose of Indira Gandhi, his daughter, was undoubtedly to perpetuate his name. But he was the real architect of 'Modern India' and deserves to be remembered and followed.  

Bangladesh does not have a similar institution. But Pakistan has Lamus in Lahore, similar to JNU and enjoys the same reputation. My personal experience testifies this. An engineering female student there asked me at a lecture in the campus why Partition took place when people on both the sides were similar, ate the same food and wore the same dress.

The student was unbiased and indicated that the atmosphere remained unpolluted. And that was some 40 years ago. Today, religious parties have hijacked the society to reap political gains. The most unfortunate part is that religion has made deep inroads into the universities.

The RSS, which seems to guide the Narendra Modi government from its headquarters in Nagpur, is appointing key posts to avowed followers of the Hindutva philosophy.  Distinguished scholars, known for their secular ideas, have been pushed out because the RSS does not want students to be inspired by their example of not mixing state with politics. If a democratic polity has to have any meaning, it must stay away from religious identities which are now being refurbished.

Unfortunately, other fields are also getting affected. Take, for example, the incident at the Patiala House Court. A few lawyers, affiliated to the BJP, created a rumpus and beat up student leaders and journalists when Kanhaiya Kumar was to be produced at the court. Kanhaiya's statement that he had nothing to do with the students who raised anti-India slogans did not relent the attackers, some of whom were said to be outsiders, wearing lawyers' robes.

It's time that all political parties put their heads together to consider steps which would leave the students to solely pursue their education instead of wasting their time on parochial politics. The nation will suffer if the students, who are idealistic at that age, are not allowed to throw up such thoughts which in the long run will help the country to cherish its ethos.

The writer is an eminent Indian columnist.