Zero tolerance to anti-nationalism absolute must
General secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury may claim that the police crackdown on students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, who were raising anti-India slogans and eulogising hanged terrorist Afzal Guru, is an Emergency-like situation, but really the action came in an ‘urgency-like situation' when students-activists had crossed all limits of free speech by hailing the Parliament attack mastermind and calling for the destruction of India. The student leader who was arrested by the police has protested innocence, saying that he did not raise the slogans and that he was completely committed to the integrity and sovereignty of India. But he was apparently part of the group of students on the university campus, which was engaged in anti-India some would use the term ‘seditious’ activity. He cannot, thus, escape accountability. He will have every opportunity to make his point before the judiciary. But the issue here is not the fate that awaits this leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, of the All India Students Federation; it's the steady growth of anti-national activities that have been flourishing over the years in various campuses and public places under the guise of freedom of expression the Constitution of India ensures. This tendency has to do with the complacency of previous Governments at the Centre who looked on at such atrocious activities with benign regard. Take the JNU issue as the freshest context along with a Press conference addressed by SAR Geelani, a former DU professor who had been accused along with Afzal Guru and later acquitted in the Parliament attack case for want of evidence. The conference happened in Delhi.
Meanwhile, the Government has rightly taken a dim view of the anti-India sloganeering at JNU. It is one thing to criticise the state or debate the effectiveness of its organs and agents, another thing to celebrate a convicted terrorist who has the blood of innocents on his hand, and quite another to call for the destruction of the nation altogether. At some point, the line has to be drawn, and the Union Government has done well to do so in a firm and determined manner. It is now imperative that this case be taken to its logical conclusion and all those who participated in the anti-India sloganeering be suitably punished. The JNU administration has now said that those who organised the event may have been “fringe elements” who abused the university's culture of debate and free speech to push their message of divisiveness. Even if this was the case, the question remains: Why didn't the administration take action earlierIJ In fact, one must go beyond last week's developments and ask the administration why it allowed one of India's most reputed universities to become a cesspool of far-left politics over the yearsIJ Even when compared to some of the other universities in the country where campus politics is an integral part of student life, JNU sticks out like a sore thumb by allowing a platform to whose views go against the Constitution of India. Even if this is only a small group of students pushing an insidious ideology, they are loud and vocal enough to establish themselves as the voice of JNU. This has damaged the university's reputation. Steps must be taken to set things back on track.