How voices from JNU are rocking UK's top varsities
India back home was not that calm when I left on February 14. Rohith Vemula was still simmering when suddenly my own Mail Today broke the story "JNU congregation over terrorist Afzal Guru" - enough to last for a few weeks as fodder for Indian newsrooms of all forms.
The mixed flames erupting out of protest and patriotism rants were not just confined to India.
As I was collecting some academic reference in the quiet setting of British Library's India Office section in the second half last month, United Kingdom's academic world was not that silent barely outside in close vicinity at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Westminster and those farther up to Cambridge, Warwick and Oxford.
Academic debates and activists-led protests have begun to show up as routine on UK's top academic institutions' calendar of events.
Social media is abuzz with invites and support surveys against what they call "growing majoritarianism-led growing intolerance in India,'' a veiled attack on the BJP's more than majority mandate at the Centre. Academics and activists who started regrouping in UK with the infamous Dadri lynching, got further close with what happened first in Hyderabad (Rohith Vemula suicide) and then in JNU (Kanhaiya Kumar's jail term on sedition charges).
Many in UK's academic circle call Vemula suicide as "killing'' and have held discussions under different themes from "Caste and Other Bigotries'', "Caste on Menu Card'' to "Politics of Beef Ban in India'', among many others planned and some being scheduled.
Apart from academics, at the Westminster University's prestigious Chevening Fellowship, the journalists this year are doing a special project on the "burning issue''.
Pity that, said one Indian journalist attending the programme, "Instead of our pluralism, which had dominated the South Asian Studies Departments here in UK, we are battling this tag of intolerance and democracy under threat back home!!''
I anticipate a louder pitch and more heated discussions rallying support for JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, who is now out of jail on an interim bail. Indian-origin associate professor Dibyesh Anand of Westminster University was very straight in saying, "UK academic fraternity got charged up with the lynching incident over beef eating at Dadri in Greater Noida area."
How can someone be killed over beef? Many like Anand are still finding the answer, but are certainly not amused. Academic experts and activists alike are raising the heat at different foras, including a protest outside Indian High Commission in London, to show their dissent against what they call "falling democratic institutions in India and attack on personal freedom".
Students from different parts of the world studying in the UK are still trying to find the answer to "how can someone be killed on the mere accusation of eating meat'', says Anand, who himself is part of many such seminars and debates being organised across UK academic institutions.
Indian politics and governance have always attracted political scientists and sociologists abroad, but this time they are active in challenging "bigotries becoming more entrenched in India''.
For instance, at the University of Westminster, the Centre for the Study of Democracy organised a discussion on "Casteism and other bigotries in India'' to discuss what led to the suicide (killing) of Rohith Vemula and what can academics associated with India do to challenge this.
There have been various events on casteism, Hindu nationalism, and the growing majoritarianism including at Warwick, Cambridge and Oxford.
Now JNU is attracting many here to come and share the platform widening the very basis of tolerance versus intolerance debate on foreign soil. A public protest titled, "Stand with JNU - Protest outside Indian High Commission"' is all over Facebook.
Academics were vocal at the British Library once they came to know that I am an Indian journalist, sensing that their voice will someway reach India. Unanimous in their dissenting tone, they said, "As scholars, we believe in academic freedom and our role to challenge injustices; it would be hypocritical if we expect fair play and anti-racism here in the UK but refuse to combat similar prejudices in India."
Perhaps there is a lesson for Indian government here. The political leadership not only failed to reach out to people on time in redressing the growing apprehensions about the very existence of multicultural, pluralistic Indian society.
It all started with students-led unrest on campuses from Pune to Hyderabad to JNU finally, worse, the leadership reluctantly didn't douse the possible flames of protest abroad in the UK and the US, triggering natural debates among Indians and Dadri, Rohith and Kanhaiya hot topics in UK South Asian communities.
Even in the case of Rohith Vemula, thousands of students, activists and others have raised questions about the political nature of the suicide. It has given enough masala to the local academia to keep churning debates for a while on most talked about Indian politics and governance at their South Asian Institutes or Institute for Advance Studies.
The calendar was packed last month. Like a discussion organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy (Department of Politics and International Relations), University of Westminster, debated: "What can UK-based scholars and students interested in India do to understand the issues around casteism and other bigotries? How can anti-racist struggles in the UK connect to, and learn from, anti-bigotry struggles in India?''
And the participants were from SOAS, to London School of Economics (LSE) to Oxford to University of Gottingen to University of Hyderabad to some activists. Soon this air of defiance threatens to pollute worldwide.
Already supported by staff members at SOAS London, and the Universities of Westminster, Warwick, and Edinburgh, Professors at Oxford and LSE are among some 500 supporters of the "solidarity statement" which has been circulated among the global academic community, local UK media reports have confirmed.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)