Top tier institutes of the national capital which should be
making headlines for momentous academic achievements are hijacking the news
headlines for abject fracas orchestrated by their political mentors. The
high-drama which loomed large over University campuses, began on Feb 22nd
refuses to die down even after a week. Like the events which unfolded on JNU
campus around the same time last year, the main stream media had yet again
managed to chisel a hero to garner all the sympathies. By and large this
phenomenon of making heroes and playing victim card to portray current
political administration as authoritative seems to be the main agenda. This
process indeed has its origins in the worst ever electoral defeats suffered by
the dynasty and its romantic seasonal bed partners.
Ever since Modi’s ascent to power, Indian public is bombarded
with new and non-decrepit phrases which have become routine words in normal
parlance. Terms like- freedom of expression, intolerance, fascist regime,
extremism, oppression, anti-national, right to dissent began to dominate the
political discourse. Each of these phrases traces their origins to
synchronized desperate, dramatic events aimed to tarnish the Narendra Modi government,
who is viciously targeted, trolled by the combined opposition. Every
significant uprising since then was aimed at creating more turbulence and widening
the binaries. The absolute majority of the NDA in 2014, has denied the grand
old party of India to even clinch the position of leader of principal
opposition. Congress critically fell short of the required numbers to claim the
post. Unrest was brewing among the opposition. Besides the major upset in 2014
general elections, Congress was drubbed in every other assembly election
post-2014. Subsequently, Lutyens Circle and its confederate intellectual cabal
was reduced to a minor-league. Sulking media and fretful opposition combine
unleashed a campaign to aggravate dormant ideological asymmetries. While this
might appear to be an irresponsible allegation, the series of uncanny assaults
on the political establishment validates these charges.
The campaign made its first significant impact through
mysterious attacks on Churches in capital city a week prior to the state
assembly elections. This adversely impacted the electoral prospects of BJP in
Delhi. Emboldened by its malicious campaign- a spree of wild but potentially
disruptive events began to dominate the political scenario. Heralded by
protests at IIT Madras that implicated the high-handedness of Ministry of Human
Resources followed by stiff opposition and massive media outrage towards sale
of beef in Maharashtra. Though the ban on sale of meat was in vogue for past
several years of Congress rule, a sudden upsurge in outrage was witnessed with
MSM taking sides under NDA government. Even before this uproar could die,
unfortunate lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq by a mob over suspicions of beef
consumption had created a national furor. Akhlaq later succumbed to death. Media
castigated the government for the crime. Extensive media coverage coupled with
intellectual outcry of growing intolerance provided enough meat for all
international newspapers. Consequently, articles titled “Ïndia being ruled by
Hindu Taliban” began to make their appearance. Back home, Nayantara Sehgal,
nephew of Jawaharlal Nehru gave fresh impetus to intellectual cabal by
returning the Akademi award triggering the Award Wapsi row. This orchestration
began to spread like a wild fire. The intellectual elite later milked the suicide
of a Dalit student, Rohit Vemula on the University of Hyderabad campus alleging
Dalit-suppression. It is widely known that the student unions in Universities
have strong political affiliations. Political leaders of various hues made a
bee-line to campus, lashing out at the University administration and condoning
the central government. Soon this fueled agitations in different universities. It
is important to ponder over all these issues to reiterate the fact that Leftist-Liberal
outrage had always been selective. To foment more trouble for ruling party
which had a pro-Hindu image, Left brigade pulled up all strings to oppose Sri
Sri Ravi Shankar, World Cultural Festival along banks of Yamuna, stall the
inauguration of 112-ft statue of Adi Yogi at Coimbatore, intensified campaigns
on ecological grounds against burning of firecrackers during Diwali.
Alternatively, media-intellectual outrage blissfully opted to
ignore incidents of same intensity and amplitude that occurred during the same
period. Attacks on temples which have increased manifold never received any
attention or condemnation. Communal clashes in UP, mass exodus of Hindus from
Kairana village of UP, Kaliachowk riots, Dhulagarh riots in Bengal, merciless
beating of Hindu students of Tehatta High School in Uluberia, West Bengal for
celebrating Saraswati Puja, killings of Sangh followers in Kannur, killings of gau rakshaks in Karnataka haven’t ever
made to headlines of any major newspaper. Suicide of Rohit Vemula was protested
but suicide of 21-year-old Abhishek in Sringeri, Karnataka wasn’t ever debated
since Abhishek belonged to ABVP. The hypocrisy of the intellectual elite is
glaring.
The political narrative of independent India has been
hijacked for the past seven decades by the Left- brigade. Campuses,
Universities, academic institutions, media have been strong bastions of the
Left. Naturally, students passing out from these institutions were indoctrinated
with these ideologies. Globally, elite educational institutions have been
breeding grounds for leftist ideology who were categorically referred to as
Liberals. Any alternative narrative that tried to question or challenge was
unsparingly pushed back. Dissenting voices were muffled. So globally debates
cornered around Liberal Vs Conservative/ right-wing thinking. As a result,
academia, curriculum and education set-ups are devoid of alternative facts,
data sets or counter-arguments. In India, too all other counter-arguments
challenging the existing ideology became extinct reflecting the intolerance of
dominant ideology that even laid siege on policy-making bodies. This explains
the systemic cleansing of non-left academia in India and why economic models of
non-left economists like Shenoy, P.C, Mahalanobis, Jagadish Bhagwati have few
takers. While the doctrines advocated by Amartya Sen are widely taught and
accepted. Leftists especially dominated social Sciences. Indeed, noted
Leftist-historians, Irfan Habib and Romila Thapar thwarted peaceful resolution
of Ayodhya-Babri Masjid issue. Dr. KK. Muhammed former regional director of ASI
in his autobiography revealed that excavation led by Professor BB Lal, DG ASI,
in 1966-67 claimed to have found remains of the temple at the disputed site.
The cabal of leftist historians have misled the Allahabad High Court. The
seminal works of historians and sociologists who offered alternative thought
process was brandished as saffron literature and stiffly resisted.
Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Adviser reflecting on the
same indicated that independent India was a “reluctant reformer" since the
dominant talent pool was averse to new changes. By 1970s when the socialist
model advocated by Nehru failed to revive the Indian economy and cloaked a
Hindu Growth Rate, economist Raj Krishna prompted Indian leadership to bring in
new reforms. It was only in 1991, when India plunged into deeper financial
crisis did India reluctantly accepted economic reforms as a final resort. Thus,
it needs no rocket science to infer that the so called intellectual elite and
AISA (All India Students Associations) have their loyalties towards left.
Last year, JNU students raised anti-Indian during a cultural
program commemorating martyrdom of slain terrorist Afzal Guru calling for destruction
of India. As the news broke out and charges were slapped on these AISA students
the intolerance brigade lashed out at government for curtailing the freedom of
expression. Various political parties thronged JNU campus to express solidarity
and reiterated dissent is integral to democracy. Political leaders instead of
condemning the malicious sloganeering that threatens sovereignty and integrity
of the country stood by them citing freedom of speech entitled by constitution
of India. Earlier, similar program honoring Afzal Guru was held in University
of Hyderabad and Rohit Vemula was part of it. Hence the sloganeering which
started in Hyderabad resonated audaciously in JNU campus indicating the
existence of a nefarious network. These campuses have been bastions of the Left
and none can easily breakthrough. For calling these activities anti-national, Akhil
Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and by consequence BJP were thoroughly
reprimanded. Modi was labelled as fascist and authoritarian. From 2014 till now,
left has created several heroes from the ordinary people to play victim card.
These include-Mohammed Akhlaq, Rohit Vemula, Kanhaiya Kumar and now Gurmehar
Kaur. News just broke out that while sedition charges against Kanhaiya Kumar
were scrapped Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya and seven others were
charged with raising anti-national slogans. Nine other sloganeers identified
were outsiders and Kashmiris. Now contrast this with Kamlesh Tiwari who was
slapped with sedition charges for calling Prophet Mohammed first homosexual. He
is languishing in jail without any investigation from Dec 2015. There wasn’t a
murmur of protest by advocates of free speech.
The present ruckus between ABVP and AISA erupted over Ramjas
College extending invitation to Umar Khalid, accused of raising anti-Indian
slogans for a seminar on Culture of Protests. When ABVP objected, invitation
was withdrawn. (Intriguingly, AISA forced JNU to withdraw invitation Ramdev
Baba from entering JNU, Prof Makarand Paranjape was stopped by JNUSU from
entering his office-no protests) But this entire episode soon turned ugly with
reports suggesting ABVP has resorted to stone throwing. Gurmehar Kaur, a 20-year-old
student of Lady Shriram College and daughter of a martyr began to troll ABVP
with hashtag #studentsagainstABVP. This latest entrant into college fracas has
for a while taken off the sheen from the protests. Instead she was trolled for
her one year old video propaganda for peace- which read “Pakistan didn’t kill my
dad, war killed him”. This message elicited sharpest responses from a wide
range of people on the social media. The trolls she claimed included a rape and
death threat. Political cahoots soon charged ABVP of threatening the young
girl. ABVP was singled out as a solo villain. Soon twitter was flooded with
tweets condemning the Right of being bigoted and misogynistic. The following
day Kaur tweeted that she was withdrawing from the protest and left Delhi.
Intellectuals resurfaced again, condoning the social media backlash faced by
Kaur and linked it to collapse of freedom of expression and hinted of weakening
democratic credentials of the country. For the past one week, ABVP alleged that
students and faculty of Ramjas College has raised anti-India slogans and hence
they protested. But AISA vehemently denied. But the video clippings shown by
India Today clearly validated ABVP’s claims.
In the past few decades, Indian political and academic
discourse was going through significant churning. The dominance of leftists at
least in some pivotal positions is petering out. For various reasons, people
with contrarian narratives, untouched by the leftist indoctrination are
steadily streaming up in the hierarchy. The momentum for fresh narratives is
gaining more strength. While the existing narrative still prefer to call them
by various names as illiberal or conservatives or rightwingers, these alien
outliers are now grappling with the old world liberal ideologists for their
space. These ideologues who monopolized the political and intellectual arena
are now resisting the new change. Precisely due to their intolerance, the space
for debate and discussion is shrinking. Also, Prime Minister Modi through his
diplomatic outreach has significantly reshaped World’s perception towards
India. Previously Diplomats and intellectual elite who represented India abroad
carried messages and identities of the country shaped and steered by leftist
ideology. Now messages deeply reflective of Indic identities, Indic narratives
are being presented to the World.
The panoply of events from May 2014, till date clearly
reinforces the selective outrage of Leftist Liberals who project themselves as saviors.
But they wreaked havoc in a democratic and secular republic by pandering to
certain sections of community for their narrow political gains. They have
monopolized the political and intellectual space of India and aspires to exert
strangle hold. In fact, the dubious raising intolerance campaign stemmed from
their deep-seated insecurities. For the first time, the Right is challenging
their hegemony over academic and intellectual spaces. The message is now loud
and clear, if the Left is unwilling to concede space for debates and
discussion, episodes of campus ruckus might become more frequent.
Finally, for all the ruckus over intolerance, will the
leftist brigade care to explain their studied silence towards the fatwa against
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh, Tarek Fatah,
Subhash Chandra issued by Imams of Kolkata & others and for dropping Shazia
Ilmi from a session on Triple Talaq organized by Jamia Milia Islamia. Eruption
of the campus wars at the fag-end of UP Assembly elections and Award Wapsi
tirade rocking the nation just before Bihar assemblies can’t be mere
coincidence…..
@ Copyrights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment