JNU demands ‘azadi’ – Ek Saal Baad

February 9, 2017, the day before yesterday: Walking to my office, past the administration building, dubbed ‘freedom square’, I was startled to see a woman with a bandaged eye, with marks of blood on the white gauze. Her wound looked really bad. My heart skipped a beat. I wanted to stop her to ask, “Are you okay? What happened?” She just ignored me, giving me a strange look of semi-recognition, and rushed on. Then I saw another, with an equally bad head wound, similarly bandaged in white, also blood-stained. He scurried on too, rather vigorously for one with so grievous a lesion. What was going on? 

When I saw dozens of such bandaged youth scuttling about, the penny dropped. These were student protesters, commemorating last year’s incident, with dressed up wounds and bandages. Remember? “Bharat tere tukde honge, inshallah, inshallah” – the reported, some would add documented, chanting of slogans of Kashmiri separatists and their supporters under the false pretexts of a cultural programme which triggered off the JNU crisis.

The bandaging of eyes, faux blood, and red marks to signify pellet wounds, was part of the performative of sympathy and solidarity with stone-throwing activists in the valley. 

Last year, there was a clash between two groups of students, the police entered the campus, and student leaders charged with sedition and arrested. JNU became the focus not just of national, but international attention.

Naturally, on the first anniversary of our troubles, I was apprehensive. Just a couple of days before, on February 6, the Students’ Union had called for a strike, cordoning off university buildings, denying entry even to teachers and non-teaching staff. I myself had been subjected to a gherao and blockade, replete with slogan shouting, name-calling, and intimidation. It is another matter that I was one of the fortunate few who managed to defy such coercive tactics, enter my building, and discharge my duties. Now, after seeing the bandaged students, I didn’t know what to expect. The last thing we needed in JNU as another flare-up of hostilities in an already embattled campus

The day seemed to pass quickly. There were student morchas, the usual tramp from building to building, shouting slogans and making noise. But things quietened down around 1:45, before the close of lunch in the hostels.

No shouting, no drumbeating, no raucous protests in afternoon. Just students lounging about, having tea, smoking, and chatting loudly. It looked as if hardly any classes had been held, at least in the Languages and Social Studies. Business as usual?

In the evening, walking back from the office, I saw more agitators, some donning the red-and-white Arab Keffiyeh. One of them, with beard and skull-cap, recognised me as I passed the Library. “Sir, Sir, I know who you are!” he said in Hindi. “Yes?” I turned around.  “You’re one of them that writes, haan?” “Jee,” I sighed grudgingly, as if admitting to some misdemeanour. Then I countered, “What have you read?” That stumped him. “I don’t know…something, yeh-woh,” he stuttered. Hahaha, just like a normal JNU student, I laughed: “Well, as a scholar, shouldn’t you be more specific in citing your sources,” I added. 

He grinned, then retorted, “But, Sir, you only give your point of view.” I smiled too, “Naturally; why don’t you write something that expresses yours?” He now looked crestfallen, “But hum ko space nahin milta. No one gives us space.” I said, “Not everyone gets space in the media.” He flared up and raised his voice, “Ah, do you mean to say, only those with merit can write?” “No, no,” I tried to soothe his hurt pride, “I get rejected all the time. You must not give up.” He looked at me surprised, almost wonderingly. “Really?” “Yes,” I assured him of my numerous failures, but also added for good measure, “You have a good chance. Much of the media is so Left Liberal.” I even mentioned the names of some rival newspapers and periodicals. He paused, with a sad, somewhat mysterious air, rued, “No more, Sir, no more….” 

Soon I reached home. The day had passed without major mishaps. At the heart of the JNU emergency was a watershed re-thinking of nationalism. Were the Left-wing agitators in JNU, who used the university as a platform to launch an attack not just against the Indian state, but also against the Modi-sarkar, anti-national? Or were they merely exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of expression and dissent? Was the reaction of the establishment an assault on the autonomy of universities and the attempt to clamp down on independent thinking? Was JNU a den of parasites and hypocrites or the site of heroic and inspiring resistance against an authoritarian state and the forces of intolerance?

One year later, there are still no black and white answers to such questions. Truth is always more complex, negotiated between binaries. Then what has really changed one year later? I think the key is in the last words of my unknown interrogator. “No more, Sir, no more,” he had lamented. Left-sectarianism will no longer get a walk-over in the public sphere in India. No simplistic framing of the nationalism debate will work now. The thinking people of India have spoken up in huge numbers calling the bluff of those, left, right, or centre, who hide their own intolerance, hypocrisy, and undemocratic practices behind noble sounding ideals and slogans. JNU has contributed significantly to the righting of discourse of nationalism in India.

STOP PRESS: Just learned that the Administration Building has been completely blockaded; so the ‘anniversary’ has not passed unmarked after all. And an anonymous student is fasting today to protest against the treatment meted out to his/her teachers. Perfect allegory of the two faces of JNU?. 

The author is a poet and professor at JNU, New Delhi