NIDA FATIMA | Caravan Daily
ON THE NIGHT of January 5, JNU paid a long-overdue price. The price that the brave invariably pay for speaking out the truth to those who are drunk with power. That it was the third — Jamia Millia Islamia first and AMU next, and not the first — to feel the fangs of a rattled snake is rather surprising. JNU has been standing up to tyrants and calling out their tyrannies for long. JNU raised protests even in days when every other institution had remained silent.
Universities are factories that create an army of ‘thinking people’, who are an impediment in the way of a tyrant seeking to unleash terror and perpetrate injustice on the hapless people he lords over. Like all fascists and wannabe fascists, the current rulers have reasons to be wary of the brave and the ‘thinking’ people. The passive response from the police force even as lathi-wielding goons ran amok and unleashed violence in JNU hostels and the blood spilled from the students are testimony to the fact that the state is up in arms against its ‘most responsible and reasonable’ among the citizens.
THERE, HERE
There are several instances in history where dictators and fascists have used brutal force to put a tight leash on people. Let us note two examples here. In November 2019, Uganda’s military dictator Gen Yoweri Museveni had unleashed an attack on students at Makerere University. They were protesting against a 15 per cent fee hike – and, JNU did it a while ago. Going further back in history, the Thammasat University massacre carried out by Thailand’s state forces and the far-right paramilitaries on student protesters in October 1976 ended with over 40 students dead, 160 wounded and 3,000 arrested. The students had been demonstrating against the return of former military dictator Thanom Kittikachorn to Thailand from Singapore.
There, though, is a big difference between then and now. While the perpetrators of these assaults were not democratically elected representatives of the people, ours ironically is. Having won power on the development plank in 2014, the BJP had quickly reverted to its old communal agenda and has been on a roll. It accomplished one vile agenda after another successfully — cow politics, love jihad, Babri issue, the triple talaq law, the Article 370. All paid rich dividends until CAA came about and changed the country’s political climate like nothing in the recent past.
CAA AS GAME CHANGER
CAA is proving to be too big a leap for their size, a game changer in India’s politics. The two tyrants at the head of the government committed their first blunder in undermining the power of resilience of students and suppressing the Jamia protests against CAA with a heavy hand. It was the state’s highhandedness at Jamia that triggered protests in campuses all across the country. AMU proved to be the second blunder; and by doing what they did at JNU Sunday night, they have committed their N-th blunder.
There is no doubt that the wannabe fascists and the administration at their beck and call are rattled and desperate. Desperate times call for desperate responses, and hence they are compelled to stoop to the point of calling on private goons to assault unarmed students; that too, by using the cover of darkness and wearing masks, as criminals often do.
Note that the Jamia and AMU too were attacked at night during the present spell of protests against the CAA. In Jamia and AMU, the police was assisted by private mercenaries. In JNU, the roles altered and the police assisted the mercenaries by remaining mute spectators as they wreaked havoc on the campus. There is video evidence of girls begging of the cops for intervention and the police looking the other way.
HAND IN GLOVE, SPINELESS
The attack on JNU has proven beyond doubt that the police and the administration are hand in glove with the government and have (so far) given no hint of having a spine. It has also proven that CAA has become a thorn that BJP is neither able swallow nor spit out. Writhing in desperation, it is claiming its victims from all directions, from every strata of the society, without reserve, without restraint.
One day, when the history of India’s struggle against tyranny is written, the name of JNU (along with Jamia and AMU) will appear in bold letters. It will be remembered for its tireless advocacy against injustices, for its refusal to bow down to power and for paying the cost of uprightness with blood.
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Nida Fatima is a Hyderabad-based writer and homemaker. She tweets @TawakkalAllah The views expressed are personal and Caravan Daily does not necessarily share them.
