JNU students vow to intensify the struggle for their constitutional and democratic right to criticise the government’s anti-people policies.
AMIDST the rhythmic chants of “azadi” that went up from his fellow students, Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar made a forceful comeback on the campus on March 3, after he was granted bail three weeks from his arrest on sedition charges. “We demand azadi not from India, but in India,” he said later in a powerful speech delivered in front of 4,000 students at the administrative block of the university. In the speech that has been trending on various Internet-based platforms for the past few days, Kanhaiya launched a scathing attack on the Sangh Parivar and the National Democratic Alliance government for its alleged role in clamping down on all forms of dissent and democratic traditions. Defending the slogans for azadi, which have become controversial in the context of a hyper-nationalist political campaign advanced by the government, Kanhaiya reiterated that these slogans were in fact calls for freedom against authoritarianism, feudalism, patriarchy, Brahminism and poverty.
Polarising tactic
Stressing that the JNU students’ movement and all other people’s movements were voices against the Sangh Parivar’s ideological agenda of forming a Hindu Rashtra, he said that he regarded the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government as political opposition. Pitching the nationalism versus sedition debate as part of a mischievous polarising tactic the government had adopted to deflect attention from the real issues of the people, he said that demanding freedom from the government’s anti-people policies was his constitutional and democratic right and vowed to intensify the struggle under the banner of the JNUSU against this brand of hegemonic politics.
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