Why Kanhaiya Kumar is not a hero
Immediately after his conditional release on bail, Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar revealed the makings of a politician. He changed his demand from "azadi from India", which banners at JNU had displayed on February 9, to "azadi in India".
The debate over nationalism sparked by Kanhaiya's arrest and subsequent release misses the point. National interest has one definition. Nationalism has many. In a free society, practise whatever interpretation of nationalism you want but don't compromise on national interest.
Kanhaiya may be guilty of many things but sedition is not one of them. Remember what we were told at university: "If you're not a communist before 30, you don't have a heart. If you're still a communist after 30, you don't have a brain." Kanhaiya is 28, so he has a couple of years to make up his mind.
Ambition
Why are so many otherwise intelligent people looking at Kanhaiya as the new Arvind Kejriwal? The argument goes thus: Kejriwal is lost to electoral politics. Kanhaiya is pure, idealistic and unspoilt by ambition. The people who say this are united by a common cause: undermining the leadership of PM Narendra Modi. To them Kanhaiya is yet another tool to chip away at Modi's legitimacy.
"Modi is just so gauche," shudders one Lutyens' lady who has spent a decade climbing the social ladder to arrive at her current perch. Others have more serious complaints. The PM hasn't delivered on several fronts, making him a vulnerable target. Modi has come under increasing attack from the Congress and its loyal following of lawyers, journalists, bureaucrats and beady-eyed power brokers who trawl Delhi.
The anti-Modi coalition got to work within months of the Congress' rout in May 2014. In Gujarat, a Patidar revolt was engineered with Hardik Patel projected as a 22-year-old giant-killer. In Haryana, the Jats were egged on to horrific violence.
Students are the latest instruments in a political attack directed expertly from the leafy heart of Lutyens' Delhi.
The Modi government presents a juicy target. It lacks talent in Cabinet and Parliament. It is hamstrung by an ideologically moribund RSS. And worst of all, it is poisoned by enemies within.
Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal and Nitish Kumar are justified in feeling that their strategy of delegitimising the Modi government is well on track. Every time the PM pummels Rahul in Parliament, as he did in his speech last week, the dissidents within the BJP come to the Congress' aid with calculated barbs. By not acting firmly against these elements, Modi is making a serious mistake.
Freedom
But what of Kanhaiya? Analyse his speech carefully: "Is it wrong to ask for azadi from the problems that are existing in the country? Brother, it's not from India, but it's in India that we are seeking azadi. And there's a difference between 'from' and 'in'. The azadi we are asking for is from starvation and poverty, from exploitation and torment; for the rights of Dalits, tribals, minorities and women. And that azadi we will ensure through this very Constitution, Parliament and judiciary. This was Babasaheb's dream, and this is Comrade Rohith's (Vemula) dream."
There's not a syllable here that has not been debated eloquently in Parliament, reported extensively in the media, and argued fiercely in the Supreme Court. The plight of Dalits, tribals, minorities, the poor, the starving and the marginalised in our society shames us all. But who does it shame most of all? Those who governed India for 56 of 68 years.
Does Kanhaiya have a single word of even mild chastisement for them? No, not a word. No mention either in his speech of the Congress' role in failing to remove poverty despite nearly six decades in power. No mention of the serial scams of the past UPA decade that stole the wealth of all Indians, especially those Kanhaiya's heart rightly bleeds most for: the desperately poor. Their food subsidies and MNREGA wages were cruelly siphoned off.
Sacrifice
In his anguish, Kanhaiya does mention the sacrifice of our soldiers - but again says not a word against those who kill them. Instead this is what he said: "Who is responsible for deaths of soldiers? And in Parliament, who are you playing politics with? Who will take responsibility for those dying? Not the ones who are fighting, but rather the people making us fight. So who is responsible for war?"
Not a word against the perpetrators of terrorism from Pakistan but misdirected fulminations against "people making us fight" as if Pakistan's decades-long terrorism directed against India is, somehow perversely, India's fault.
Kanhaiya doesn't say a word against Sonia Gandhi or Rahul whose family has governed India - the India he decries - for six decades. He doesn't say a word either against his Left cohabitors who ruined West Bengal with a mixture of violence and povertarian politics. But he has no such qualms about the PM, telling a national daily that the "student movement" would continue till "the ruling alliance was thrown out of power".
There's nothing wrong with opposing the government. But to treat Kanhaiya as a messiah when he hasn't uttered a single original thought, merely parroting an ultra-Left ideology, is as wrong-headed as the government charging him with sedition.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)