How students make anti-nationals: Anti-Modi is anti-India
For a country facing serious external and internal threats, dealing with issues of dissent and freedom of speech presents a difficult challenge.
An essential ingredient of democracy as a political system is freedom of speech, which Article 19 of our Constitution provides, subject to some reasonable limits that include the security of the state, public order, and India's sovereignty and integrity.
Can, therefore, freedom of speech be exercised to the point of raising anti-state slogans and calling for the break-up of the country? Sporadic sloganeering of this kind by rootless fringe groups can be ignored, but should it be if these groups are active in some of the premier universities and have links, practical or ideological, with those actually involved in activities against the state?
Radicalism
One can argue that too much importance should not be given to such strident student activity, that platforms for airing even objectionable political ideas should be permitted in varsity campuses as part of the process of learning and intellectual growth, bearing in mind that youth radicalism is a common but a passing phenomenon in most cases. It can be argued too that India is strong, that it should show confidence in itself and not overreact to such provocations.
But, the reality is that India faces a real challenge of terrorism from outside and within. Some see Maoist violence as the biggest security challenge. For the last 30 years, Pakistan has abetted terrorism across the country. Our Parliament has been attacked, and with repeated attacks in Mumbai, especially in 2008, the country's psyche has been scarred.
We have not been able to find an adequate answer to Pakistan's fasadi threat. Its strategy is to leverage disaffected groups within India for its operations in order to strengthen "deniability", which means that we have to remain extremely vigilant about radical elements in our territory.
We have been unable to forge strong instrument of counterterrorism at the political, legal and institutional levels.
Our federal system impedes a coherent national-level response. Our state-level police forces remain ill-equipped, undermanned and undertrained.
Infighting
While groups like SIMI have been banned, a full probe of the links between Pakistan and groups in the country is inhibited because of minority politics. The notion of "saffron" terrorism has added to the political confusion. We lack a robust anti-terrorism law because of political differences among parties.
This inability to deal coherently with terrorists has allowed forces that challenge India to cross the bounds of legitimate dissent. They are conducting a kind of psychological war through the media. Terrorists, whose guilt has been established under law, are presented as victims of politics. Sympathy for them is evoked by reporting human-interest stories involving their families. The judicial process itself is questioned, as in the Afzal Guru case.
There is an attempt to bring Dalit activists, Maoists and radical Islamic elements on to a common platform of protest, as seen in the recent JNU event and the earlier one at the Hyderabad Central University.
Anti-national
That slogans against the "judicial murder" of Afzal Guru should be raised as part of venting of social and class grievances against the country is objectionable by any standards. Protests by student activists, without resorting to violence, would be legitimate in law, but because terrorism has no existence outside of violence, support for Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon can in no way be legitimate, and has to be viewed as being "anti-national".
Point scoring by political parties and the unrelenting opposition to Narendra Modi and the Hindutva ideology by "secularists" has distorted the debate around anti-national sloganeering at the JNU. The action of the authorities is being projected as suppression of dissent, curbing of freedom of expression and another manifestation of rising intolerance.
Ironically, those making these accusations are hurling invectives at Modi and his government without restraint. They speak of government instilling fear but are fearless in denouncing it. Luminaries have been mobilised in the US and the UK to join the chorus in attacking the Modi government in lurid terms. All this is part of a combined internal-external effort to delegitimise the government politically and morally abroad, even as Modi has tried hard to build a positive image of India internationally.
The rising anti-Islamic sentiment in the US and Europe shows how the liberal values cherished by these regions are buckling under pressure that bears no comparison with the religious and other diversities we cope with in India. Those propagating the intolerant India vision should look at these developments in the US and Europe and show some sense of proportion in their strictures.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)