Jadavpur University protests expose the ‘liberals’
Even as normalcy limped back at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, yet another left-dominated university is on the boil. This time it is Kolkata's Jadavpur University, where student protests have broken out over the screening of Vivek Agnihotri's Buddha In A Traffic Jam. The controversial film tells the story of a radical left professor who brainwashes his students, and claims to expose the nexus between NGOs, Maoists and academia. It has already been screened in several universities including the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management and the national law schools, but it hasn't been well-received in left-leaning campuses such as JNU.
At JU, the problem began when the university's alumni association, which was to screen the film at its auditorium on campus, backed out a day before the screening — ostensibly due to pressure from powerful leftist forces. The film-maker and his supporters responded by screening the film anyway in open-air (and without the required permissions). This led to the screening being disrupted and students clashing with each other. Four members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad who were not JU students but had been invited for the screening also got involved — allegedly, they molested female students and were also beaten up by left activists. The police are investigating, and it goes without saying that those who engaged in violence or broke the law must be punished.
The bigger issue here though is that of leftist intolerance. left-liberals are forever crowing about the right to freedom of speech and expression; they say they hold it sacred, and consider any perceived assault to be nothing less than fascism. Yet, they themselves have no qualms about clamping down on free speech rights of those who do not share their views. According to leftists at JU, Agnihotri's film preaches “divisiveness and Hindu fundamentalism” and, therefore, should not be screened. By this logic then Nakul Singh Sawhney's controversial documentary Muzaffarnagar Abhi Baki Hai, on the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh, should also not be screened because another group of students and activists are of the opinion that it is ideologically hostile to the Right.
Yet, the fact is that not only has Sawhney's film been screened in many university campuses, as it rightly should be, it was even being screened close to JU the day Agnihotri's film was to be shown. The left's hypocrisy is as galling as it is widespread — In Indian politics, for example, the leftists are the ones who make the most noise over human rights issues but routinely butcher their political adversaries just as they scream the loudest for secularism and minority rights but have also make common cause with conservative clergymen who peddle extremist views. Outside India, a telling example of leftist double standards is the bullying of Israel supporters at many US and European campuses by those pushing for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Jewish nation.