Fighting for a larger cause, says JNU activist Shehla Rashid

Alleged anti-India slogans and voices for liberation of Kashmir by the students may have caused an uproar in Jawaharlal Nehru University. But Shehla Rashid, a 27-year-old Kashmiri student at the university, who is leading
the battle against the government from the forefront disassociates herself and her party from any such remark.

This vice president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union hails from an apolitical middle class Kashmiri family. She is now making headlines globally and is grooming herself for a larger role in the Left movement at the national platform.

While she realises that there is future for the Left in her home state in the near future, she feels that her fight is for a larger cause.

"I am aware of the entire political spectrum of this country. But I associate myself with the All India Students' Association," she said.

She does not wants to detach the socialist movement from Kashmir and feels that the socialist ideas of the late Sheikh Abdullah should to be revived in the valley. "Senior Abdullah emphasised on women rights and
rights of the labourers. But his politics is not reflected anywhere today by anyone in Kashmir," she said.

Kashmir has been the epicentre of the JNU protest. The protest meet was called against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. The students present at the protests allegedly raised slogans for the liberation of Kashmir and wanted to divide India into pieces.   

"If protesting for Afzal Guru is an act of sedation then eminent citizens like Justice Markandey Katju, Justice AP Shah and all those universities and institutions who raised voices against the way Guru was hanged should be booked for sedition," she says.

Rashid does not projects herself as a Kashmiri but as an inclusive nationalist. "When the students were raising pro-Kashmir slogans, I had gone to them myself requesting them not raise such slogans. We are addressing a larger issue," she said.

With JNU protests, Rashid's political pitch too is maturing each day.

On Friday, she took the government and its political ideologue head on.

"The BJP has targeted the Muslim community every time, be it the Samjhauta Express blast or the attack on Akshardham Temple in Gujarat.

Today again this government is trying to do the same thing," she said.

Contrary to the Kashmiri viewpoint, Rashid has no hesitation in associating herself with the Indian tricolour. On Friday, a march was organised in Kashmir to express solidarity with JNU. The protesters in Kashmir carried the black IS flag. But Rashid welcomed the HRD ministry's decision of installing the tricolor on central university campuses. "We don't have any problem with the national flag. Our university already has one and we take pride in it.

We hope that the HRD ministry advises its mentors at Nagpur (RSS) also to put up the tri color instead of their saffron flag," she said.