The JNU Controversy: Are We Losing Our Sense Of Balance?

The JNU controversy is showing no signs of abatement. My Facebook/Twitter is divided into two camps. While the rest of us fling ourselves into the fray, some of us must take a step back, try to detach ourselves and analyse the whole episode. The problem is that, as it always happens with such volatile issues, the core issue gets laid by the wayside, and the larger debate snowballs into something far removed from the core issue.

The right wing is offended by the seditious slogans shouted by a bunch of students who are allegedly from the JNU. They demand legal action against the perpetrators of treason. Because the police were unable to catch the name-less and face-less people that are seen shouting the slogans in the video, they go for the easiest and the most obvious target, Kanhiya Kumar, the student-leader.

The left wing sees this as breach of right to free speech. They are demanding release of Kanhaiya Kumar and are outraged by the Emergency-like conditions. They have conveniently forgotten the content of the slogans and have made the debate all about right to dissent and right to free speech.

What amazes me is how both the factions are shaping the debate to suit their own interest.

The issue at hand can be looked at from two perspectives: macroscopic and microscopic. Most people on my Facebook/Twitter timeline have chosen to take a macroscopic view of the situation. Everyone is making sweeping generalisation. 

While dissent and debate are crucial, one has to draw a line somewhere. Sloganeering isn’t an intellectual exercise insofar as I understand. Even so, one is perfectly entitled to raise anti-Modi, anti-BJP anti-RSS, anti-ABVP slogans, and such slogans have been raised in the past, effigies have been burnt, and marches have been taken out, without anyone demanding any arrests. But “Bharat ki barbadi tak jung rahegi...jung rahegi” or “Bandook ke dum per azadi”, to my mind, appear to be taking things too far. We must not lose our sense of balance. By defending Afzal Guru, aren’t we defending extremism? How is extremism of the Left more valid and less condemnable than that of the Right? How are we then any the better than Pakistani establishment which believes that while Jihadis that bomb and attack Pakistan are bad Jihadis, but the ones that bomb and attack India are good Jihadis. 

I am willing to go so far as to even sympathise with the use violence as a means to achieve your objectives (which could be equality, liberty, or establishing the hegemony of your religion), but then you will have to see all of them equally. You then lose the moral right to condemn or vilify organisations like ISIS or Taliban. Just as you are fighting for your cause, ISIS too fighting for its cause.

Yes, in an ideal world, we should have the liberty to even raise anti-India slogan and demand Bharat ki barbadi if we deem it fit; but then, do we live in an ideal world? In an ideal world there should be no discrimination positive (reservations) or negative (untouchablity); in an ideal world everyone should have equal intellectual quotient; in an ideal world everyone should be perfectly rational. Clearly, by any of these standards, we don’t live in an ideal world, and thus we are bound to, as I suggested earlier, draw the line somewhere. Now this line is usually arbitrary, just as the legally permissible age of drinking, say. But we must draw it nonetheless. Yes, it could be debated and changed, but until such time a resolution is reached and it is altered, it has to be respected. 

As the hold of religious fervour is wearing off in the liberal psyche, people are bound to look for ideas/objects wherein they can anchor their faith. Some people find this anchor in liberal humanism and others find it in nationalism. Both are social constructs. The concept of “Bharat Mata” or motherland and the idea of defending its honour is as much a manufactured idea as is the idea of equality and human-rights. Both are unscientific and unnatural. In the natural world there’s no motherland, nor is there any equality or rights. Matsya-nyay, or the rule of the might, works in the natural world. A quote by Tagore is doing rounds—it essentially says that humanity should supersede nationalism. What we don’t realise is that both humanity as well as nationalism are imagined realities. How does one then decide which imagined reality should be valued more than the other? I personally would any day choose humanism over nationalism, but expecting everyone to toe my line may be a tad unfeasible, however desirable. Consequently, we will have to work out an intermediate space where there is mutual sensitivity and mutual respect for these ideologies. Swinging to either of extreme ends will only result in chaos.

This is by means an attempt to dilute the necessity of human-rights (including the right to free speech). We must strive to maintain the sanctity of such principles in order to maintain order and justice in society. However, we must also not write off other imagined realities, just because they don’t square with our imagined reality. We are humans and we will always live by these imagined realities or systems (religious or secular). Systems are inescapable, if not indelible. When one system is destroyed, there swoops in another in place of the first. And nationalism, by the virtue of being secular, enjoys the kind of currency and reach that even religions don’t. Perhaps that’s the reason that even the people on my Facebook and Twitter who are otherwise very liberal in their outlook, are taking unkindly to the agitation by the JNU. Again you may label them as that pseudo-liberals (how can they condone the clampdown?), but then, they too can turn around and call you pseudo-nationals (how can they condone “Bharat ki barbaadi tak jung rahegi” slogans?). This mutual name-calling doesn’t take us anywhere though. 

When looked at from a microscopic standpoint, what bothers me is that hardly any of the teachers or intellectuals leading the protests came out and condemned the distasteful and objectionable (if not anti-national) remarks/slogan. Most of the people on my Facebook/Twitter who are outraged over this episode, did not show any outrage over the “bandook ke dum pe azadi” slogans. 

They could turn around and say that these slogans weren’t mouthed by JNU students in the first place and the JNU students are being framed. I say, I so ardently wish that is the case. The speeches of Mr Kanhaiya Kumar and Ms Sucheta make me want to believe that they have no anti-India sentiments whatsoever. However, that should not prevent them from explicitly condemning and unsubscribing from the objectionable statements made on their campus, mainly because these very statements are the root of the controversy.

Though universities are hailed as spaces where contrarian views are allowed to be voiced, we don’t see that happening always. Last year Baba Ramdev was not allowed to address the students on the JNU campus as some student groups were opposed to this idea. There was lot of protest when about three years ago Mr Modi, the then chief minister of Gurjrat, was invited by SRCC college to speak on matters of economy. 

The Right wing has also not left any stone unturned to take things to the extreme. BJP MLA O. P. Sharma took it upon himself to attack left-wing activist and journalists. The likes of the infamous Kailash Vijayvargia have suggested that such ‘anti-national’ people should be shot. Some lawyers have chosen to brandish their nationalism by walking in to the court with the national flag in their hands. We see a clear attempt being made by some lumpen elements to co-opt patriotism bandwagon to settle their political scores. Such attempts must be thwarted and shamed. Slapping charges of sedition on a student leader seems as bizarre as wishing for Bharat ki barbaadi.

But there’s a large apolitical mass of people too that is not happy with this debate is being shaped. We should call a spade a spade. We can’t get so blinded and enslaved by our ideological affiliations that we become unwilling to see things for what they are. When last year Gajendra Chauhan was appointed as the FTII chairman, film-personalities such as Anupam Kher, who is Right-leaning, went on record to criticise the move and openly expressed his dissatisfaction with it.   

My appeal to all the stake-holders, especially the teachers and mentors is to bring back a sense of moderation in the discourse. Don’t let interest groups stoke the passions for their personal and political motives. Turn away people like Rahul Gandhi who did not care to express any solidarity whatsoever when these very students were withstanding lathi-charge ordered by UPA government because the students demanded justice for Nirbhaya. Ask him to go away and tell him that you’re perfectly capable of fighting your own battle. Ask O.P. Sharma to keep his desh-prem to himself. Tell him we don’t want to lynch people even if we don’t agree with what they say. The key to stability and healthy debate gets lost between #ShutDownJNU and #IamWithJNU.