The JNU campus has bec-ome a hot seat for political mileage and protests after Friday’s arrest of JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges. While mostly the students have vociferously condemned the Delhi police’s action, some students have also highlighted that mostly it was students from other outfits who were the real troublemakers. Even though there is little clarity on Friday’s events, on one hand the Delhi police claims to have footage of JNU students raising “anti-national” slogans and on the other hand the students claim that the student body head was not “anti-national”. As a result there are two sides to the JNU story, one being the debate on sedition and the other being on technicalities of the organised protest.
Meanwhile, on Saturday the university students and teachers organised a meet to “save JNU” and thousands of students gathered on the campus to express their solidarity wi-th the arrested and det-ained students. Students holding “Save JNU” placards said expressing political views does not amount to sedition.
For now the students and teachers feel the sedition charges should be dropped against the students and the issue be discussed in a holistic manner.
Students had varied opinions on the events of the past week. “Most students who raised slogans in favo-ur of Afzal Guru belonged to the Democratic Student Union (DSU) which has no support base. They have not won a single election ever. And most of those who created the problem were expelled from their party in the past. They are anti-nationals but not at all a benchmark for judging JNU or the leftist politics here. They are fringe elements,” said Himanshu.
Some students feel JNU prides itself on being anti- establishment. “It’s fashionable to be anti-establishment here at JNU, it has an intellectual appeal,” says Sandeep, a student at JNU. “However, I don’t think any one of them can go out and cause hurt or injury. I am 100 per cent sure that there can be no concrete manifestation of their anti-India stance,” he added.
This is all very theoretical and ends with a good job opportunity and exit from the campus,” he added.
Some of the slogans raised at the march on Friday were “Jis jis ghar se Afzal niklega, us ghar main ghus ghus ke marenge (We shall enter each home which breeds Afzals and kill them)”, “Jitne Kasab laoge, utne Kasab hum katenge (As many Kasabs you bring will be butchered)”, and “Desh ke gaddaro ko ek dhakka aur do (Give the traitors another jolt)”.
This was preceded by a solidarity march attended by a large number of students and teachers condemning the arrest of Mr Kumar who most of them thought was “unjustly targeted”.
On Friday night thousands of JNU students participated in a march led by the ABVP to laud the arrest of Mr Kumar and demand the arrest of other “anti-national” students.
