Kanhaiya is a coward. He betrayed JNU by disowning Afzal Guru
BJP leader LK Advani's well-known quote that when asked to bend during the Emergency the media crawled somewhat applies to JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar today. The context is different, the issue is different, but the attitude vis-a-vis the government is the same: crawl when asked to bend.
Despite all his braggadocio and the accolades pouring over his stirring speech, Kanhaiya capitulated on the issue that triggered the entire controversy and took him to jail.
Had he not chickened out, Kanhaiya would be saying, "I didn't raise the slogans of Afzal Guru Zindabad, Pakistan Zindabad and Jang rahegi, Bharat ki barbadi tak" but "I do say that the hanging of Afzal Guru was wrong and that it amounted to judicial killing".
Kanhaiya has no courage to say even that much. He is smartly trying to bypass the issue saying that "my idol is not Afzal Guru, my idol is Rohith Vemula". He is not defending Afzal Guru, but he is not holding him guilty either. That is clever.
The fact is that Kanhaiya was present at the meeting where pro-Afzal Guru slogans were raised. There is no evidence that as the students' union president he disapproved of the slogans or tried to stop those who were raising them.
More importantly, legal luminaries who rushed to defend Kanhaiya on behalf of the Congress and the Left said that raising slogans in itself didn't constitute seditious act. Giving a call to violence would have been. So what's Kanhaiya scared of?
He is scared of facing the long arm of the law. He is scared because he is looking forward to a teaching and political career.
But that's not "revolutionary". Is that? There are a number of Kashmiri youth, Manipuri young men and women, who are in jail for saying what they believe in. There are also a number of students who are in jail in Chhattisgarh and other Maoist-affected areas because they have stood up to the state.
Large numbers of students went to jail during the Emergency. They too were held on serious charges such as sedition and violence against the state. They spent 19 months in jail. Nobody can guess what fate they might have met or how many years they would have spent in jail if the elections were not called. Unlike Kanhaiya, they didn't capitulate.
Contrast the JNUSU leader's position against that of writer and activist Arundhati Roy. She stands by her conviction on Kashmir; she stands by her conviction on Maoists. She has the courage to express her opinion on issues that are dear to her heart and the issues, which the current BJP government treats as seditious and against the interests of the state.
For good or bad, Kanhaiya's cowardice has led to the burial of the contentious debate over Afzal Guru's hanging. Now the debate whether his hanging amounted to "judicial killing" will be dead.
The debate will continue in Kashmir where the writ of the government doesn't run - it will continue in private if not in public. Had Kanhaiya not been scared, the debate would have gone viral in the social media space, with the youth in colleges and universities debating it. NGOs and activists would be taking out protest marches and rallies.
"Kitne Afzal maroge" slogan would have mutated to "kitne Kanhaiya ko jail bhejoge".
After all, within the JNU campus, students have been holding meetings on the anniversary of Afzal's hanging for the past three years. Will it be held now? Will the students dare call a meeting to protest his hanging next year?
No.
It's because of Kanhaiya's lack of conviction that the spark triggered by the arrest of JNU student leaders and the outrage over the lawyer goons who beat up Kanhaiya in the court have failed to spread to other universities.
Kanhaiya has killed a potential pan-India student movement.
It's possible Kanhaiya is scared of violating the judicial conditions of his bail, which prevent him from discussing the issue that is sub judice. That again shows Kanhaiya lacks courage of conviction.
He and his friends may argue that his retreat is tactical. That remaining behind the bars would have deprived him of the opportunity to campaign during the upcoming state Assembly elections. That he would be working as a catalyst to mobilise anti-BJP votes and build an anti-Modi atmosphere by remaining free than in the prison.
That's a lame argument. That's political expediency.
Kanhaiya has also failed his friends Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, who are in jail facing the same charges as he. How will Kanhaiya justify his conduct if it's proved that Umar raised pro-Afzal Guru slogans?
It's just a technical issue. In reality, Kanhaiya was present there as an associate of Umar and as such is equally culpable.
It's because of Kanhaiya capitulation that the BJP is loudly proclaiming to have won the "ideological battle" over the JNU row.
It's because of him that the finance minister Arun Jaitley exulted at Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) meeting in Vrindavan stating: "I consider this our victory because a person, who was jailed for chanting slogans of dividing India, after being released has to say 'Jai Hind' and waves the tricolour during his speech."
Kanhaiya is exulting too sitting in the cocoon of JNU - surrounded and cheered on by like-minded comrades. Outside the campus, he has let his tormentors declare victory over him.