Pritam's Blog
The Curious Case Of The Ramjas College Row
Amidst all the debates and discussions that followed after the Ramjas College row, what is lost and forgotten is the issue of Bastar, about which Umar Khalid was supposed to speak in the first place at Ramjas College.
The college’s literary society had organized a two-day seminar on “Culture of Protest” in which JNU students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid were invited. Umar Khalid was supposed to speak on ‘The war in Adivasi areas’. However, members of AkhilBharatiyaVidyarthiParishad (ABVP) demanded that the “anti-national” JNU students’ invitation be cancelled, which set off the row. The ABVP members had allegedly pelted stones, locked the seminar room, and cut the electricity supply. The event was suspended.
The following day witnessed a large-scale violence when members of ABVP launched an attack on the students during a march from Ramjas College to Maurice Nagar police station in which students and professors were wounded.
What followed next was, as expected, the never- ending debate on the state of freedom of speech and expression in India, and how ABVP, the students wing, and BJP, the political wing of the RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS) are saffronizing the educational institutions of the country, suppressing voices, and ruining the environment of debates and discussions in colleges and universities.
The chaos reached heightened level when Gurmehar Kaur, a student of Delhi University was brutally mocked, humiliated, and intimidated after she posted a photo of her holding a placard which said, “I am a student from Delhi University. I am not afraid of ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me. #StudentsAgainstABVP.”
And amidst all these, the plight of the adivasis of Bastar was forgotten.
There is no denying the fact that what the Sangh Parivar is doing to the country in general, and students in particular need to be condemned. But at the same time, it should also be kept in mind that that should not be the only priority of the media and the intelligentsia. Because that is probably what political party in power, irrespective of who they are (be it the BJP or Congress or any other party)wants, to keep us distracted from other issues, like the situation in Bastar.
The human rights of the tribal of the Maoist-effected area are regularly violated by the army and police. According to a report by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) published in January, 16 women were raped, and assaulted sexually and physically in October last year by security personnel. There are instances where women had to have their breasts pinched and squeezed to prove that they had breastfeeding infants.
Unfortunately, we do not see national debates on such barbarism that is being unleashed upon the tribals of Bastar, our media doesn’t tell us about it, and so there is not the slightest of condemnation against such inhuman state-sponsored violation of human rights and dignity — which also serves the political interest. And that’s why the government wants us to be distracted and busy with other issues, like the national- antinational debate.
Probably that’s why Umar Khalid was not allowed to attend the seminar where he was supposed to address these issues. Thus, the forced cancellation of his invitation to the event served dual purpose- the government succeeded in suppressing the Bastar issue, and it successfully distracted the media and the intelligentsia to keep themselves busy with national-antinational debate.