What JNU and Kanhaiya have done is hold a mirror to the great democracy that seems to have lost its way
Aijaz Zaka Syed for TwoCircles.net,
Ah, to be young and in love. What an amazing speech! What an absolutely mind-blowing, soul-stirring speech! I can still feel the goose bumps. Bravo. Simply bravo!
You can probably speak so freely and with such passion, instantly conquering hearts and minds only when you are young and hopelessly in love, as JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar clearly is, with the Lady Liberty. This is perhaps what Iqbal had in mind when he sang:
Khirad Ko Ghulami Se Azad Kar Jawanon Ko Peeron Ka Ustad Kar
Free young minds from slavery
And make them mentors of the old
If anyone thought someone, who has been in prison with India’s most wanted for 20 days and has suffered worst abuses and beatings by the upholders of law inside the court room, would have suitably mellowed down, they were clearly in for a disappointment.
Indeed, since he stepped out of the Tihar Jail, the baby-faced revolutionary has been defiance personified. With an easy charm and eloquence, and regulation Bihari sense of humor to boot, Kanhaiya has captured a nation’s imagination.
As if to rub it in where it hurts the ruling BJP and Hindutva the most, he returned to the university with thousands of his supporters, chanting the same “anti-national, seditious” slogans that drive the zealots up the wall and have shaken the citadel of power in Delhi. Only, he pointed out with a smile and characteristic Bihari twang, we want “azadi within India, and not from India.”
Never has a student in independent India’s history — or earlier – made such an impact on the world around him in such a short time. No sooner had Kanhaiya started speaking in JNU than his speech had emerged as the global No. 1 trend on Twitter.
So how do you explain the phenomenon?
It would be simplistic to assume Kanhaiya — and his rebellious friends — attracted such national and global attention because of his raising the banner of revolt in the heart of Delhi or his detention and the sedition charges brought against him. It is partly that of course.
However, more than the medium, it is the message of change and the craving for a better world that that these young souls represent and dream about that seems to have captured the popular imagination.
It is the universal nature of Kanhaiya’s message that resonated with people in India and around the world. Demanding freedom from hunger, exploitation, injustice and politics of hate and fear and calling for an egalitarian, classless society, it was typical Marxist idealism.
For those growing up in Telangana, once the hotbed of Marxist Progressive movement and Maoist or Naxalite movement, many of these slogans and the utopian idealism that they represent had been all too familiar. For many of us though, they were merely slogans. One would humor one’s JNU friends and their preoccupation with the much promised red dawn of socialism, without giving them excessive importance.
So it must be the courage of conviction with which Kanhaiya and his comrades raised those slogans that suddenly made them all plausible. They reminded you why the Left movement in India and around the world had electrified the imagination of generations that came before us.
Beginning in 1920s and 1930s, the Progressive Writers’ Movement held sway over the subcontinent for nearly 70 years. The Urdu word ‘taraqqipasand’ (progressive) in Kanhaiya’s speech went over the heads of most Indian journalists. But there is a long, glorious history and a movement behind it that was led by greats like Prem Chand, Faiz, Sajjad Zaheer, K A Abbas, Mulk Raj Anand, Makhdoom, and many, many others.
Poets like Sahir brought the movement down to popular level with their fiery idealism using Indian cinema and with songs such as ‘Woh subah kabhi toe aayegi’ and ‘saathi haath badhana’ or ‘jinhen naaz hai Hind par who kahan hain?’
It is only apt that the Jawaharlal Nehru University, named after India’s first and its most liberal prime minister, has managed to rekindle some of that lost magic and idealism of those extraordinary times.
And it couldn’t have come sooner either. Indeed, in the words of historian Nayantara Sahgal, we all owe Kanhaiya and JNU a “huge debt of gratitude for taking us out of that molasses of depression which many of us had fallen into for a while. Modi has met his match in Kanhaiya.”
What JNU has done is to hold a mirror to the great democracy that seems to have lost its way.
No one expected the BJP government to be a beacon of reason and moderation. Given the historical and ideological baggage of the Parivar and the Prime Minister himself, it was but natural that the 2014 General Election was preceded by serious apprehensions and a sense of foreboding. The unprecedented, extravagant BJP PR offensive, bankrolled by corporates, sought to allay those fears by promising ‘sab ka saath, sab ka vikas’ (inclusive development for everyone).
As a result, the electorate handed the BJP an impressive victory. Any other party and leader would have most humbly cherished the unprecedented mandate and dedicated themselves to serving the people and delivering on their promises.
Instead what we have seen over the past two years is an open season of hate-filled hysteria and intolerance. Not a day passes without minorities being shown their place in the country. Of course, communal violence has always been a part of our history. Given India’s size and its awesome complexity, occasional violence is perhaps understandable. However, never have the perpetrators of violence enjoyed such state patronage.
It’s not just senior BJP MPs and leaders of allied outfits who go about spreading sweetness and light against minorities, women and Dalits. Senior ministers have repeatedly gone about tearing apart the Constitution that they were sworn to uphold and protect. From Sadhvi Jyoti to Giriraj Singh to Mahesh Sharma, central ministers have been vying with one another to spout hatred and poison against minorities.
What happened last week in Agra, home to the ultimate symbol of love, takes hatemongering by those in power to a whole new level.
This is how Indian Express reported the Agra public meeting: “Muslims were equated to “demons” and “descendants of Ravana”, and warned of a “final battle”, as the Sangh Parivar held a condolence meeting here for VHP worker Arun Mahaur, who was killed last week allegedly by some Muslim youths. Among those present on the dais were Union Minister of State, HRD, and BJP Agra MP Ram Shankar Katheria as well as the BJP’s Fatehpur Sikri MP Babu Lal, apart from other party local leaders, who joined in the threats to Muslims. Speaker after speaker urged Hindus to “corner Muslims and destroy the demons”, while declaring that “all preparations” had been made to effect “badla (revenge)” before the 13th-day rituals.” (http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/muslims-warned-of-final-battle-at-sangh-meet-mos-katheria-says-weve-to-show-our-strength/#sthash.ZBMcpoFo.dpuf)
Central Minister Katheria joined other BJP MPs and Hindutva luminaries in urging Hindus to “demonstrate their power,” openly calling for burning the usual suspects as they burn demons during Diwali.
Yet Home Minister Rajnath Singh insists in parliament with a straight face that there was ‘no hate’ in Katheria’s speech. If this isn’t hate speech and spreading religious enmity, as the law puts it, what is?
As for the prime minister, he seems to live on a different planet where all this talk of intolerance and hate does not interfere with his reverie and globetrotting. He continues to promise us ‘achche din’ in his ‘mann ki baat’ sermons even as India’s finest intellectuals, writers and artists cry in alarm over the state of the nation.
Achche din (good times) have indeed arrived — for the PM and his party. As for the rest of the country, it badly needs and awaits a leader who cares; and has a vision to unite a divided people.
(Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Gulf based writer. Email: [email protected] )