|| ZUHAIB YOUSF MIR
Tolerance to contrarian views in our democratic setup is the rudimentary and indispensible facetthat binds us together as a nation. In fact, in the wider concept of nationhood, we owe the victory of our democratic system to this aspect of assimilating dissent. Needless to say that the willingness to accommodate the opposition in the greater interest of the nation as propounded by Nehru is the central aspect of our democracy as it creates possibility for deliberations, cooperation, evolution and ultimately progress.
The recent spate of judgments on the definition of who is national and who is anti-national that ensued after some students of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University pontificated their views on Afzal Guru’s death sentence is not just appalling but a regressive step in the building up of our democratic institution. For participating in a cultural evening in the “university”, a vital place for evolution of ideas, and expressing their “views” “guaranteed as fundamental right under article 19 of the constitution” , the students were slapped with the charges of sedition. Sedition, in section 124A of the IPC, is defined as “exciting disaffection” towards the government by promoting “disloyalty” or “feelings of enmity”. While the “Explanations” statutorily added to the section seek to mitigate interpretations of sedition that might contravene the fundamental right to freedom of expression and the right to seek lawful change. It still remains possible for the authority to invoke the section to enforce brutality on those who are deemed “anti-national”.
But how can this section to be invoked against students in a university who are peacefully, if vociferously, giving an out to their political opinion. Hyper-nationalism undermines the mantra of erstwhile Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who while reaching out to secessionist sentiment stated that humanity will supersede the letter of the law and the framework will be developed to adjust all. This magnanimity and shift inwards from the stated state position was seen as a welcome step and we envisaged an early resolution to the problem of J and K back then .
But after looking at the rigidity to accommodate dissent and the state trying to prevail as sanctimonious for example in case of JNU and similar cases , solutions to such issues look evasive . The Home Minister went so far as to link students to the dreaded Lashkar terrorist Hafiz Saeed, based on a police endorsement of a fake Twitter account. Not just have we not seen any evidence of terror links, but also it now appears that the video used to slap a sedition charge on Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU student leader, has been reworked, with the audio merged onto images from a different day. One needs to understand the underlying connotations of associated with this episode. Firstly, after the decisive victory of BJP in general elections in 2014 , the organization hasn’t been able to win any state elections in a grand way ,
PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti believes Afzal Guru should not have been executed and has also (as part of her father’s “healing touch”), often visited the families of dead militants because she does not think their children should be punished.
so this hyper nationalism gimmick could be to reassert MrModi’s and BJP’s fading position, as elections are due this year in Pondicherry, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala , Assam and most importantly Uttar Pradesh early next year. This very much could be seen analogous to the Love Jihad campaign spearheaded by MP Yogi Adityanath to win over the by election for around 28 seats. Secondly, the youth wing of BJP namely ABVP wants to now establish a stronger hold in the campuses of all the major universities in India as they see this as an opportune time under the patronage of the BJP led government, the concept of e stablishment o f “ campus R SS” is at play.
Patience and tolerance should be the hallmark of a government. Let the government suo-moto drop all charges of sedition on JNU students to accommodate every colour and idea that prevails under the wider umbrella of this nation by keeping the humanism aspect alive.
And lastly in my opinion this is a way of holding onto things and promises that the government sees fading away. We all are aware that the MrModi government hasn’t been able to do anything substantial about the “ache din” concept that he so very well proclaimed , this could be a warning to all the dissenters to fall in line , “now that I haven’t won you by deliberations and diplomacy I shall crack down on you” is at the heart of this entire episode. If Modi thinks he can intimidate JNU students and by corollary the dissenters, then I think he again needs to learn about the conception of this nationhood. He has only created an immense tenacity among students and youth everywhere in the country to resist a government that so blatantly abuses the law. For Jammu and Kashmir this event could be seen ominous as PDP is again going to tie a knot with the BJP.
And if central government so blatantly and with full aggression slaps sedition charges on people living in the Indian subcontinent and this episode so ferociously spurs “national” and “anti-national” debate, just because a university student had an opinion what exactly will be the fate and position of PDP and the people who voted for “kalamdawat” in this marriage of odds. PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti believes Afzal Guru should not have been executed and has also (as part of her father’s “healing touch”), often visited the families of dead militants because she does not think their children should be punished.What would be the future of this government on such fundamentally diverse issues?
This arises just one conclusion either BJP is hypocritical or PDP is too naïve or may be too single-minded to get governance relinquishing its ideals in order to align with antagonistic organization. Concluding this article I would like to underscore that patience and tolerance should be the hallmark of a government. Let the government suo-moto drop all charges of sedition on JNU students to accommodate every colour and idea that prevails under the wider umbrella of this nation by keeping the humanism aspect alive.
Zuhaib Yousf Mir MSc Economics University of Edinburgh
(Editor’s note: Views expressed by the author are his own, Kashmir Leader doesn’t subscribe to any of his views)
