The spiraling protests and the counter protests at the Jawaharlal Nehru University are refusing to die out. What started as an event to mark the anniversary of 2001 parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, by alleged students of the university, at the campus has snowballed in to a gigantic political controversy, resulting in detentions under sedition charges, assault on journalists and amongst other things.
Basically, The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) imbroglio has produced two important issues for public discussion. The first focuses on the limits that sedition (patriotism?) places on freedom of speech. It asks, for example, whether shouting anti-India slogans, by unknown persons as the First Information Report says, constitutes a ground for booking the students’ union president under sedition laws. If fine distinctions were to be made between slogans, protests, speeches, dissent, and incitement, and further between fuzzy and definite consequences of such actions, would not only some (very few) free speech expressions be considered seditious? These are crucial issues for our constitutional democracy today, and the JNU case has presented our courts with a great opportunity to give us a doctrine on the limits to free speech in India.
The second issue, entangled in the first, is with respect to the place of JNU in the postcolonial nation’s public life as the university nears its 50th year. I belong to the first decade of JNU, a magical period during which we gained perspective and learned the power of ideas and of democratic deliberation. It was a time when we became passionate about causes and when no tyranny was fearful enough to suppress our dissent.
Although, the whole university has condemned the “India ki barbadi tak” slogans raised in JNU on 9 February. That the university’s premises were used for such an act has also been condemned in the strongest of voices. It is yet not even certain whether students raising those objectionable slogans were from the University. JNU premises are open spaces because the University ethos claims that one needs open mental and physical space for proper thinking. Indeed, the University has strongly rejected being a surveillance campus and contrary to what some news anchors said, not everyone’s ID cards are checked when they enter. Students on foot, in autos, bikes and buses enter and leave as they please.
Yes the slogans were raised. However, were these slogans seditious? Did they incite violence so much so that it would lead to the breaking up of the country? No, no and no. In a country where Salman Khan is let off for lack of evidence and Sanjay Dutt, in a TADA case, makes a mockery of his sentence by being more on parole than being in jail, can you blame a JNU student for questioning the legitimacy of the Afzhal Guru trial? A trial where the judgment itself stated that Guru was being sent to the gallows more to satiate the collective conscience of the people than for satisfactory evidence.
Before people start frothing at their mouths for the slogans that followed, the entire JNU community condemns them and stands for a university-level enquiry into the incident. The student organizers deserve at least a fair enquiry, if nothing else. But before anyone could look into the incident, find out who said what and sieve fact from fiction the government had begun its trial and the media had given its verdict. The minimum the government could have done was to get the tapes checked in a forensic lab before arresting the University’s student union (JNUSU) president for sedition. They could have set up a university-level enquiry first. It is difficult to say who fed on whom but news channels had a field day maligning the one University of repute in this country.
But still there is question that remains that was it nationalistic to insult JNU, its 47 year old reputation, its students, its culture, its research and its education nationally as well as internationally? What prospects do now remain for students who are applying for Fulbright and Ford Foundation fellowships; for those who are going to present their papers across India and the world and for those applying for postdoctoral studies abroad? How has such a swift condemnation of every student of JNU and the institution brought any honor to India’s name? How can any nationalist be proud of this?
Basically, The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) imbroglio has produced two important issues for public discussion. The first focuses on the limits that sedition (patriotism?) places on freedom of speech. It asks, for example, whether shouting anti-India slogans, by unknown persons as the First Information Report says, constitutes a ground for booking the students’ union president under sedition laws. If fine distinctions were to be made between slogans, protests, speeches, dissent, and incitement, and further between fuzzy and definite consequences of such actions, would not only some (very few) free speech expressions be considered seditious? These are crucial issues for our constitutional democracy today, and the JNU case has presented our courts with a great opportunity to give us a doctrine on the limits to free speech in India.
The second issue, entangled in the first, is with respect to the place of JNU in the postcolonial nation’s public life as the university nears its 50th year. I belong to the first decade of JNU, a magical period during which we gained perspective and learned the power of ideas and of democratic deliberation. It was a time when we became passionate about causes and when no tyranny was fearful enough to suppress our dissent.
Although, the whole university has condemned the “India ki barbadi tak” slogans raised in JNU on 9 February. That the university’s premises were used for such an act has also been condemned in the strongest of voices. It is yet not even certain whether students raising those objectionable slogans were from the University. JNU premises are open spaces because the University ethos claims that one needs open mental and physical space for proper thinking. Indeed, the University has strongly rejected being a surveillance campus and contrary to what some news anchors said, not everyone’s ID cards are checked when they enter. Students on foot, in autos, bikes and buses enter and leave as they please.
Yes the slogans were raised. However, were these slogans seditious? Did they incite violence so much so that it would lead to the breaking up of the country? No, no and no. In a country where Salman Khan is let off for lack of evidence and Sanjay Dutt, in a TADA case, makes a mockery of his sentence by being more on parole than being in jail, can you blame a JNU student for questioning the legitimacy of the Afzhal Guru trial? A trial where the judgment itself stated that Guru was being sent to the gallows more to satiate the collective conscience of the people than for satisfactory evidence.
Before people start frothing at their mouths for the slogans that followed, the entire JNU community condemns them and stands for a university-level enquiry into the incident. The student organizers deserve at least a fair enquiry, if nothing else. But before anyone could look into the incident, find out who said what and sieve fact from fiction the government had begun its trial and the media had given its verdict. The minimum the government could have done was to get the tapes checked in a forensic lab before arresting the University’s student union (JNUSU) president for sedition. They could have set up a university-level enquiry first. It is difficult to say who fed on whom but news channels had a field day maligning the one University of repute in this country.
But still there is question that remains that was it nationalistic to insult JNU, its 47 year old reputation, its students, its culture, its research and its education nationally as well as internationally? What prospects do now remain for students who are applying for Fulbright and Ford Foundation fellowships; for those who are going to present their papers across India and the world and for those applying for postdoctoral studies abroad? How has such a swift condemnation of every student of JNU and the institution brought any honor to India’s name? How can any nationalist be proud of this?
