The raging debate in the aftermath of violence at ‘Ramjas College’ and a retaliatory march by Delhi University students singing ‘Hum Honge Kamyab, Ek Din’ and shouting ‘Azaadi’ from fear and violence can never be termed anti-national in a liberal and free thinking society. But the death and rape threats to Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur for taking on the RSS- affiliated ABVP has turned the spot light from right to dissent and freedom of speech to pseudo nationalistic jingoism.
Ministers take oath to protect the constitution. It is rule of law that needs protection. It is ought to be duty of the government to uphold the exercise of right of free speech and to suppress violence intended to stifle it. The seminar on ‘Cultures of Protest’ was in pursuance of that right guaranteed by the Constitution. Kanaiyah Kumar or Umar Khalid would be obvious choice speakers due to their ‘star’ status at the JNU fracas last year. But how could the ‘right’ ABVP permit the ‘left’ Umar Khalid? Possibly they lacked talent in meeting the arguments of left whose ideological moorings are quite firm. They did not have the conviction of reasoning to meet their thought. They did what they were good at – throwing chairs and stones at unsuspecting students and teachers behind the seminar. ‘Omar Khalid’ could not be attacked by reason and hence the attack is against his ideas. Violence is the weapon of fascists who detest right to dissent.
Venkaiah Naidu, the Union Minister is already on record hinting that slogans of ‘Azaadi’ will no longer get free pass once the government tightens the contentions sedition law that gives the police to arrest on that charge. Kiren Rijuju, a junior home minister enjoined with the responsibility to protect the 20 year old Gurmehar Kaur questioned “who polluted her mind?” Why should government step in what is essentially a law and order situation and provide legitimacy to hooliganism on the spacious plea of ‘nationalism’? You get branded as anti-national when you question the government and its policies. Taking a political line of autonomy in Jammu and Kashmir is considered anti national. Support to activists in the red corridor or struggling masses in the North East who seeks certain rights under the constitution is similarly seen.
In November, 2016, an opinion against the government’s demonetization move was considered anti-national. Kiren Rijuju dubbed the attack at Ramjas College to be a ideological clash between ‘ultra leftists’ and ‘nationalists’ clearly taking a stand that organisers of the seminar on ‘cultures of protest’ as anti-nationals and those who perpetrated violence as nationalists. It is such prejudice built around ‘nation’ and ‘nationalists’ that destroy all spaces of dissent, tolerance and dialogue.
Since 2014, all retrograde ideas are given legitimacy – what your wear, what you eat, whom you love and what you view on TV and cinema screens are areas of state intervention. If cricketer Virendra Shewag and actor Randeep Hooda took the stand, it is all in the context of a vitiated atmosphere created since 2014. The de-recognition of Ambedkar Periyar study circle by IIT Madras, the suspension of Vermula and five others leading to suicide by Vermula, arrest of Kanaiyah Kumar on a sedition charge and the persecution of FTII students over their protests of Gajendra Chauhan all highlight the intolerance to any form of dissent
The Supreme Court has held that the true test of sedition is whether the speech is a real provocation to violence. The doyen of 1975 emergency era Jaya Prakash Narayan called upon the armed forces to defy orders of the government which was then bent upon containing the student movement and suppressing the movements in the wake of Mrs Gandhi’s disqualification from Rae Barelli constituency. Could it be said that the call was an act of treason? Have our Finance Minister and other ministers forgotten the past that brought the emergency? Each of the acts/deeds have to be understood in the contextual frame of reference.
For decades students have been in the fore front of mass movements. The current movement is to protect liberal and secular values in our society. The present central leadership has grown from such movements, (though of saffron type). But it is tragic that these very people are taking all steps to shut reasoned discussion and debate on issues that our country is afflicted with. President Mukerjee has aptly put it ‘these temples of learning must resound with creativity and free thinking’. His assertive statement ‘freedom of speech and expression is one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution. There must be space for legitimate criticism and dissent’ is spot on.
The attempt at tinkering with the law of sedition lacing the same on pseudo nationalistic flavour to keep it in tune with popular sentiment built around honor of country and its borders is an orthodoxy of present regime that has held freedom of speech and expression hostage at the altar of their perception of nationalism. In 1999 the Queen’s bench in England held ‘we in this country continue to owe a debt to the jury which in 1670 refused to convict the Quakers, William Penn and William Mead, for preaching ideas which offended against state orthodoxy (Penn was refused admittance to the Quaker meeting hall and in protest began to preach in the street. He was indicted along with Mead under the common law for taking part in an unlawful assembly. Jury refused to hold them guilty and were taken into custody!).
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes opined “liberty not to those who agree with us but freedom to the idea that we hate”.
(The writer is practicing advocate and senior faculty in law)
